Controversy

Videogame News - A New Blog Devoted to Daily News Coverage

Videogame News is a new blog I've created in order to focus on the daily coverage of the videogame industry.

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Forza Motorsport 3 vs Gran Turismo 5

Forza Motorsport is the racing franchise that defines the Xbox gaming platforms. Forza Motorsport is a game franchise that has been growing in a positive way over the last decade. Many reviews called Forza Motorsport 2 the greatest racing simulator ever made. Many people have been looking forward to Forza Motorsport 3 because it uses a brand new graphics engine with ten times as many polygons being displayed!

Similarly, Gran Turismo is a franchise that defines the Playstation gaming platforms. But over the last decade we’ve seen Gran Turismo games have been moving in a negative direction. Gran Turismo 4 was the lowest rated game in the series, and Gran Turismo 5 was constantly delayed – literally in development for over six years. Sony even released a game called Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in order to keep fans satisfied until the final game arrived.

Now we are going to see if Gran Turismo 5 was worth the wait. We are also going to see how Gran Turismo 5 compares to Forza Motorsport 3 on the Xbox 360. Key areas such as graphics, game play, online performance, and features will be examined. Here goes:

Graphics

Forza Motorsport 3 has significantly better graphics than Gran Turismo 5 in virtually every measurable way. The frame rate always remains at a perfectly smooth 60 frames per second in Forza Motorsport 3. Gran Turismo 5 often experiences problems associated with drops in frame rate. Replays in Forza Motorsport 3 also remain smooth at 60 frames per second while the replays in Gran Turismo 5 are only 30 frames per second.

The native resolution of Forza Motorsport 3 is 1280x720p. Sony originally claimed Gran Turismo 5 was going to have a native resolution of 1920x1080p. Unfortunately, the hardware of the PS3 was modified with one of the two Cell CPU processors being removed prior to launch. As a result, it was no surprise to see the PS3 lacked the power to live up to that promise.

The actual native resolution used by Gran Turismo 5 is 960x1080p. This is important because several websites, including websites offering head-to-head comparisons and technical analysis, have given false specifications of Gran Turismo 5. Resolutions such as 1280x1080p and 1024x1080p have circulated on the Internet. But these technical specifications are incorrect and do not apply to Gran Turismo 5.

In reality, it is the very unusual resolution of 960x1080p which ended up being used in Gran Turismo 5. 960x1080p means the horizontal resolution was cut in half compared to the original development plan. This is probably one of the reasons why Gran Turismo 5 was delayed so many times.

The reason why the frame rate remains smooth at 60 frames per second in Forza Motorsport 3 but drops to 30 frames per second during replays in Gran Tursimo 5 is because of the weaker GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) of the Playstation 3. The Xbox 360 GPU is capable of displaying up to 500,000,000 polygons per second, while the PS3 GPU is capable of displaying only 275,000,000 polygons per second. This is the reason why a game such as All-Pro Football runs at 60 frames per second on Xbox 360 but only 30 frames per second on PS3.

Replays require extra detail, which meant Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3 probably had no chance of maintaining anything close to a steady frame rate of 60 frames per second. Although disappointing, it was probably a smart decision for the developers at Polyphony to make the decision to have replays run at only 30 frames per second in Gran Turismo 5. The replays in Forza Motorsport 3 definitely look better than the replays in Gran Turimso 5.

The cars in Forza Motorsport 3 are built with between 300,000 polygons to 500,000 polygons per car. The cars in Gran Turismo 5 are built with 100,000 polygons per car to 500,000 polygons per car. The majority of cars in Gran Turismo 5 are built with fewer polygons; however, the “premium” cars are built with up to 500,000 polygons per car.

In Gran Turismo 5, the number of cars on screen has a big impact the game. There is an affect on the number of polygons allowed to appear on screen at the same time. You never see more than five cars on screen at a time in Gran Turismo 5, and when premium cars are seen it is even less. This also affects artificial intelligence (A.I.) in Gran Turismo 5, since one of the SPE sub-processors dedicated to A.I. in the PS3 architecture is virtually useless when intense graphics are being displayed. The artificial intelligence in Forza Motorsport 3 remains excellent at all times, regardless of the number of cars being displayed at any time.

In terms of the tracks and backgrounds, Forza Motorsport 3 has significantly better graphics than Gran Turismo 5. The texture quality, lighting, shading, and lens flare in Forza Motorsport 3 outperforms Gran Turismo 5 in every area. Simply put, if you play both games you will have no doubt Forza Motorsport 3 has better graphics.

Sound

The sound in both Forza Motorsport 3 and Gran Turismo 5 is excellent. I own a flagship Onkyo A/V receiver and high-end speakers from JBL. The surround sound adds realism to both games. No matter what point of view you choose to use in the game, the sound is excellent and will make you happy.

Game Play

Both games are fun to play; however, there is no doubt the winner is Forza Motorsport 3. Both games have been available for a while and the professionally published reviews in magazines and newspapers clearly show Forza Motorsport 3 is rated higher than Gran Turismo 5. Ultimately, game play is the reason why both game series have been popular over the last decade.

Forza Motorsport 3 is available as a Platinum Hit, which features a staggering 136 tracks to play on! There are also over 400 cars available right out of the box. The really cool feature in Forza 3 is that you can customize cars, signs, and logos, essentially giving you an infinite supply of cars to play with. What’s even better is the way you can create cars, and then auction them on Xbox Live!

Gran Turismo 5 has an impressive 71 tracks to play on with over 1,000 cars available to use. The overwhelming majority of these cars are just “standard” low-polygon designs that most gamers won’t enjoy using. The majority of cars in Gran Turismo 5 simply look like “upscaled versions” of the cars in Gran Turismo 4 which appeared on the PS2. Considering Gran Tursimo 5 spent over six years in development, it really is a big disappointment that such a huge number of cars lack polygon detail.

Both Forza Motorsport 3 and Gran Turismo 5 feature cars that can be damaged, although this feature is not immediately available in Gran Turismo 5. This is a cool feature that adds a lot of fun to game play. When you play online with other gamers, you always know it’s going to put a smile on your face when you see someone else crash or push a competitor into another car.

The damaged vehicles in Forza Motorsport 3 have a significant impact on game play and artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, damaged cars in Gran Turismo 5 are not influenced in any way by damage. This poor artificial intelligence in Gran Turismo 5 has led to a term called “Zombie A.I.” to be associated with the game.

One of the coolest new features I’ve ever seen in a racing game is the way Forza Motorsport 3 adds a form of “time reversal” button. By pressing the “back” button, you can go back in time as long as you hold the button. This means inexperienced gamers can instantly pick up the controller and start playing in a way that immediately brings enjoyment. The instant you see a friend mishandle a car on a turn, just tell your friend to hold the back button so they can give it another try. This is an excellent game play feature!

Winner: Forza Motorsport 3

Forza Motorsport 3 has a relatively easy time beating Gran Turismo 5 as a racing game. At this point in time, Forza Motorsport 3 is generally considered the greatest racing game ever created. There is no doubt the Forza Motorsport game series has continued to move in the right direction. I’m really looking forward to Forza Motorsport 4, which will launch later this year and offer compatibility with Kinect.

Gran Turismo 5 is quite a big letdown that did not live up to six years worth of hype. This is probably the reason why Gran Turismo 5 is the lowest-rated game ever released in the Gran Turismo series. In terms of graphics it was quite disappointing to see such a poor effort by the developers who were given so much time to program the game. Gran Turismo 5 is still a fun game to play, though, just not as fun as Forza Motorsport 3.

In fact, I would say Gran Turismo 5 is not even the best racing game on the Playstation 3. I can think of Need for Speed games that have a better balance of graphics, artificial intelligence, and gameplay. But if you own both consoles, I would recommend the Xbox 360 versions of those games because of better graphics, more people to play with online, and a larger number of people that own microphones to chat with while playing.

Champion: Forza Motorsport 3 is definitely the best racing game ever made. No other racing game offers so many tracks, high-polygon cars, features, and excellent artificial intelligence. If you enjoy racing games, I strongly suggest Forza Motorsport 3: Ultimate Platinum Hit because it can be purchased for a very low price. Amazon is an excellent place to purchase the game because you get free shipping and you may not need to pay taxes, depending on where you live.

Sony Posts $3.2 Billion Loss – Sony is No Longer an Industry Leader

Sony Corp will post its third straight annual net loss for the year that ended in March after writing off tax credits. This is the latest in a string of grim headlines on the consumer electronics giant. The maker of PlayStation video games, Vaio computers and Bravia TVs has been battling to recover from a series of security breaches on its networks that negatively affected more than 100 million user accounts. The annual net loss would be Sony's second-largest ever, underscoring the decline of a company once a symbol of Japan's electronic and manufacturing excellence.

I have been skeptical about Sony for a long time. Sony has been overtaken by Apple and other companies," said Yuuki Sakurai, CEO and president of Fukoku Capital Management in Tokyo. "The management is not able to show shareholders the future of the company."

Sony has found itself outmaneuvered by Apple in portable music and various other areas of technology. Samsung Electronics has outmaneuvered Sony in flat-screen TVs and other home theater equipment. Sony has also continuously been outmaneuvered by Nintendo and Microsoft in the videogame market. Playstation 3 is the least successful console ever released by Sony.

Sony had previously forecast a net profit of 70 billion yen ($857 million) for 2010/11. Stock markets were surprised today when Sony announced a need to update investors with revised estimates ahead of its official earnings report on Thursday. Stock exchange rules in Tokyo require companies to notify investors if estimates for the business year are likely to be more than 30 percent higher or lower than their most recent forecast. Sony said it now expected to post a net loss of 260 billion yen ($3.2 billion), due to a non-cash charge of around 360 billion yen ($4.41 billion) related to Japanese tax credits.

In April, Sony shut down the PlayStation Network worldwide in order to try and repair the biggest problem in the history of the videogame industry. Sony has slowly started to restoring areas of access, but is still working with Japanese government authorities to restore access in that country. Sony said "known costs" for the hacking attacks were estimated at 14 billion yen ($171 million). Sony is targeting the end of May for fully restoring the affected networks; however, as we have already seen, Sony’s estimates cannot be considered without skepticism.

Last week, Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer aggressively responded to critics saying Sony was too slow to notify consumers once the online hacker attack had been indentified. Howard Stringer stands alongside other Sony executives such as Jack Tretton and Kaz Hirai for behaving selfishly in deceitful ways. Recently, Controversy exposed Sony’s deceitful methods of calculating sales figures in order to minimize negative publicity associated with poor sales and declining market share. While trying to avoid negative publicly from the online hacker attack, Sony allowed loyal consumers to be at high-risk of identity theft and financial theft.

What are your thoughts on this? Do you agree with industry experts saying Sony has been overtaken by foreign competitors such as Apple, Samsung, and LG? One thing is clear; Sony no longer represents any form of symbol of Japanese excellence in the world of electronics. Corporate giants outside of Japan, such as Samsung, LG, and Apple, now characterize themselves as leaders of the electronics industry.

Why is Capcom Making Unusual Sales Forecasts?

Recently, Capcom publicly stated how disappointed they were with the way Sony’s PS3 console was experiencing such awful problems with online hacking of the PSN. Capcom claimed to be losing a lot of money because of sales that potentially could have been made during that time period. Most videogame analysts thought Capcom was speaking out in a very unusual way, since we didn’t hear other third-party game developers making bold public statements like that.

Today I learned some of the interesting sales estimates Capcom has made for 2011. These sales estimates are very controversial considering the Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3 worldwide. First, I want to remind you that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has sold over 53 million consoles worldwide, while Sony recently announced the PS3 has sold 50 million consoles worldwide.  However, as I have confirmed on Controversy, Sony deserves the reputation they now have for publicly announcing inaccurate sales figures.

Capcom’s PS3 sales forecast shows an estimate of 8 million software units sold from the release of 16 different software titles. Capcom’s Xbox 360 sales forecast shows an estimate of 4.7 million software units sold from the release of 14 different software titles.

Even though the Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3, Capcom believes the PS3 will produce nearly double the software sales of the Xbox 360! This sales forecast doesn’t seem to make sense when you consider the Xbox 360 versions of software usually outsell the PS3 versions. For example, Crysis 2 is a recent high-profile multiplatform release resistant to statistical outliers. When sales figures of Crysis 2 started coming in, we saw the Xbox 360 version had outsold the PS3 version by a ratio of 1.7:1.

What are your thoughts about Capcom’s sales forecasts? There is no doubt the majority of third-party companies see greater revenue on Xbox Live than they do the PSN. Sega recently released Sega Rally HD Online exclusively for Xbox Live Arcade. With that in mind, why would Capcom make such outrageous sales forecasts favoring the PS3 by nearly a 2:1 margin?

Why is Sony Hiding PS3 Sales Figures?

NPD Sales results for the month of April were just released. For the second month in a row, Sony has asked the NPD not to publicly release the actual number of PS3 units sold. Sony has commented on the sales figures, saying these results show year-to-year sales of the PS3 are up 13% for the month of April, 2011 compared to April, 2010. But for the second month in a row, Sony has asked the NPD not to publicly release the exact sales figures for the PS3 console. The controversial questions is, what would Sony’s motive be for doing such a thing?

Although the year-to-year sales for the PS3 are improved by 13% for the month of April, the same apparently could not be said for the month of March. If the PS3 had produced impressive sales figures or seen a year-to-year rise in sales, Sony would have wanted to announce this publicly, as they did this month. But we will never know for sure, since Sony did not allow those numbers to be released publicly.

Now that it seems reasonable that the PS3 did not see a year-to-year improvement for the month of March, it means there was apparently a year-to-year decline for March. This seems like a logical motive for Sony to ask the NPD not to release sales figures to the public. This seems particularly true when you take into consideration that Xbox 360 sales in March saw a year-to-year improvement of 28% and sold a whopping 433,000 units! The Nintendo Wii sold an impressive 290,000 units this March.

For the month of April, both Microsoft and Nintendo allowed the NPD to release sales figures, as usual. The Xbox 360 sold 297,000 units, which was a 60% year-to-year gain compared to April of 2010. Only 172,000 Wii units were sold for April 2011, which is a large year-to-year decline in sales. For 10 of the last 11 months, the Xbox 360 has been the top-selling console, while the Wii has continuously seen declines in year-to-year sales.

Several websites online have been listing an April sales figure of 204,000 for the PS3. However, this is not based on anything that the NPD publicly released with Sony’s permission. The only reason this number of 204,000 exists is because Sony has said there was a 13% year-to-year increase in sales. We know that the PS3 sold 180,800 units in April, 2010, which would put April, 2011, at 204,304 units sold.

The controversial question many people want answered is why Sony is no longer willing to allow NPD to publicly release sales information based on exact numbers. Although a year-to-year sales increase of 13% for the PS3 is not as good as the 60% year-to-year sales increase seen by the Xbox 360, it is still something to be proud of.

As I said before, Microsoft recently announced that the Xbox 360 has been the top-selling console 10 of the last 11 months. But if you investigate and look at the sales figures during those 11 months, you see that the PS3 finished in last place each of those months, except this month! This month the PS3 was apparently able to finish in second place, outselling the Wii for the first time in years!

With that in mind, we need to ask ourselves why Sony isn’t willing to put a spotlight on their exact sales figures anymore. Some people have speculated that the recent problems experienced with the PSN outage is Sony’s motive for apparently not wanting publicity. But what about Sony’s motive for not sharing exact sales data for the month of March? Was Sony’s only motive for not wanting to release March sales figures the fact that the PS3 finished so far behind its direct competitor, the Xbox 360?

Statements made by Sony Computer Entertainment CEO, Jack Tretton, indicate that Sony uses a far more forgiving method of defining what a “sale” is than Nintendo and Microsoft. We know that Microsoft and Nintendo consider a unit sold when it has “Been shipped to a retailer or wholesaler that has made a purchase.” This doesn’t necessarily mean consumers purchased the units in stores, but it does mean retailers and wholesalers have purchased the units and have them sitting in stores waiting to be purchased by consumers.

Statements made by Sony executive, Jack Tretton, clearly show that Sony’s definition of a sale is very different. Sony considers a PS3 unit “sold” the instant it is “Produced and placed into inventory.” This means even if a retailer or wholesaler has not purchased the unit, Sony still classifies PS3 units as “sold,” even though they are collecting dust in inventory warehouses. This is a method of cheating – telling the public a unit is sold, even though it hasn’t been shipped to a retailer or wholesaler yet.

Using this form of definition to define the word “sold,” Sony can take credit for millions of units being sold in a very deceptive manner that produces inaccurate results. The best example of this situation occurred in 2006 at the E3 show, and was then proven in 2007 during an interview that Sony executive, Jack Tretton, was a part of. I will briefly describe what happened.

At the 2006 E3 show, Jack Tretton predicted that the PS3 would sell 6 million units by the spring of 2007. But when the spring of 2007 arrived, only 1.4 million consumers worldwide had purchased the PS3. In fact, the PS3 never had a chance of selling 6 million units, since Sony was only able to produce 5.5 million units in factories. In this interview, you see a chart clearly showing that the PS3 had seen disappointing sales of only 1.4 million units worldwide, yet Jack Tretton is claiming that the PS3 was only “a half million” units behind Sony’s goal of 6 million units.

When you subtract a half-million (500,000) from 6 million, you end up with 5.5 million. This is the exact number of units that Sony says had been “produced” by the spring of 2007. Not even close to 5.5 million units had been shipped to retailers and wholesalers by the spring of 2007. This obviously means that Sony’s executives were claiming that all 5.5 million units that had been produced and placed into inventory warehouses were classified as “sold,” even though 4.1 million of them were still sitting in warehouses collecting dust.

Most people believe that the reason Sony started classifying sales in this inaccurate manner is because the PS3 saw such disappointing sales when it launched. Even in Japan, the PS3 has not sold well – even being outsold by the Xbox 360 several months during the first couple years of its life. Each time the Xbox 360 saw an exclusive launch of an RPG game like Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Infinite Undiscovery, or Tales of Vesperia, it would produce a spike in sales that resulted in the Xbox 360 outselling the PS3 in Japan that month.

This is a surprise, because foreign products like the Xbox 360 usually sell very poorly in Japan – a market that always does its best to stay away from American products. If executives at Sony Computer Entertainment would have told Sony shareholders that only 1.4 million PS3 units had been shipped to retailers due to a lack of consumer demand, it would have caused management executives to be fired. This is probably why Sony executives started reporting the number of units “sold” in a way that was synonymous with the number of units “produced.”

In fact, Ken Kutaragi, the designer of the PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP was asked to step down and instead take up the roll of Honorary Chairman. This is the Japanese cultural way of getting fired, since Japanese companies have a tradition of hiring an employee for life. The PS2 and PS3 were both criticized by developers for being difficult to program. As a result, Ken Kutaragi is no longer involved with the Playstation products.

Most people don’t realize that Sony still uses this form of deception when publicly announcing sales figures such as 50 million PS3 hardware units sold worldwide. Sony can get away with this because most of the world doesn’t accurately keep track of sales the way we do in North America. But in North America, Sony can’t get away with deception like this because the NPD sales data is so accurate. According to NPD sales figures, the Xbox 360 is outselling the PS3 at a large rate.

This is very important because North America is the largest videogame market in the world. This expanding sales gap between the Xbox 360 and PS3 is the reason why popular multiplatform games such as Crysis 2, Portal 2, and many others continuously see sales figures significantly higher on Xbox 360 – a console that has sold 53 million units. If the Xbox 360 has sold 53 million units while the PS3 has sold 50 million units, it is a difference of only 6%. With a difference of only 6%, it would not be possible for Xbox 360 versions of software to continuously outsell PS3 versions by such a wide margin.

For example, Crysis 2 is a highly rated game resistant to statistical outliers. Crysis 2 recently launched on both the PS3 and Xbox 360. But we saw the Xbox 360 version outsell the PS3 version by a ratio of 1.7:1. This would not have happened if the Xbox 360 had only a 3 million unit hardware sales advantage over the PS3. Thus, we can logically conclude there is obviously a bigger gap than 3 million units between the Xbox 360 and the PS3. I believe this is why Sony no longer wants sales data from NPD and other sales organizations released to the public.

I really do recommend you take a look at that interview here. This will help you to see what I’m talking about. Thankfully, the person on CNBC interviewing Sony executive, Jack Tretton, was not fooled or deceived, as you will see in this interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFIDsTsWJHw

Please share your thoughts about why Sony is no longer allowing NPD to publicly release exact sales figures of the Playstation 3, even though the PS3 has done several impressive things this month.

Soul Calibur 5 Coming to Xbox 360 and PS3 - And Possibly the Wii 2?

Namco has officially announced that Soul Calibur 5 will be released for the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in 2012. The game takes place 17 years after Soul Calibur 4. Namco – a company that recently returned to profitability – has said that more information about Soul Calibur 5 will be revealed at this years Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Up to this point, the best version of Soul Calibur ever released is the Xbox 360 version of Soul Calibur 4. The Xbox 360 version runs at a resolution of 1365x960p, which is 40% higher than the resolution of 1280x720p used in the PS3 version. This is because the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) of the Xbox 360 is so much more powerful than the PS3 GPU. The Xbox 360 GPU can display up to 500,000,000 polygons per second, compared to only 275,000,000 polygons per second for the PS3 GPU.

My controversial question has to do with the release date of Soul Calibur 5 and if it will be released for the Wii 2. If the Soul Calibur 5 game is scheduled to be released in 2012, will it also be released for the Wii 2 – which is supposedly going to be released in 2012? The Wii 2 version may be able to run at a resolution of 1920x1080p, since its GPU is slightly more powerful than the Xbox 360 GPU.

This also seems to suggest that Soul Calibur will not be available on a next-generation console such as the third Xbox or the PS4 for quite a while. You would tend to think that the soonest Soul Calibur 6 would be available is for the third Xbox at least two years after the release of Soul Calibur 5. But in all probability, we would not see a next-generation Soul Calibur game until three years after the release of Soul Calibur 5. This means the earliest we would see Soul Calibur 6 on a next-gen console would be 2014, but probably 2015.

Share your thoughts on Soul Calibur 5 and the Wii 2. Do you think Soul Calibur 5 will also be released for the Wii 2? How about Soul Calibur 6 and the clues it offers regarding when next-generation consoles will be here?

Sony Targets May 31st for Full Restoration of PSN

On April 20, 2011 the Sony PSN online service went down with over 74 Million users affected in a negative way by online hackers taking advantage of Sony's weak security system. A short time after, the service went down again with another batch of over 20 Million users affected in a way that involved a breach of credit security and financial records that would allow identity theft to occur. Sony recently announced that May 31st is the date currently being targeted for the return of full functionality to the PSN. The Playstation Blog says that Sony has a goal of restoring online game play prior to May 31st.

No other problem in the history of the videogame industry has ever produced such an impact on so many millions of people – approximately 100 million people. As an industry analyst, I believe next months NPD sales figures will confirm just how angry consumers are with Sony. Senators, congressman, and other politicians in the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, and all across Europe have criticized Sony for their lack of responsibility and selfishness. Consumers do not appreciate it that Sony was not willing to inform users within a reasonable time period in an effort to avoid negative publicity.

Senator Blumenthal Criticizes Sony’s Playstation Management

For more than a week, Sony’s PSN online network that works with the PS3 game console has been down because it was hacked into by pirates. Yet Sony’s management has refused to even admit that it was hackers that caused the problem. Connecticut Senator, Richard Blumenthal, carefully listened to the situation regarding millions of people that have been influenced in a negative way by Sony’s poor management. Thankfully, Senator Blumenthal recently took the time to responsibly act on behalf of millions of people across the country.

Senator Blumenthal took the time to write to the president of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, Jack Tretton. In this message to Tretton, Senator Blumenthal criticizes Sony’s lack of effort to inform users of the PSN service that their personal financial information has been compromised. Problems such as identity theft, illegal purchases, and many other troubles with credit cards and debit cards can easily occur in this type of situation when people are not informed within a reasonable time period. Yet Sony’s management seems unwilling to accept accountability for all of these problems due to the fact that it would generate even more negative publicity for the PS3 – a console that has been criticized for disappointing sales ever since it launched in 2006.

On his official website, Senator Blumenthal makes the following key statements:

“A breach of such a widely used service immediately raises concerns of data privacy, identity theft, and other misuse of sensitive personal and financial data, such as names, email addresses, and credit and debit card information. When a data breach occurs, it is essential that customers be immediately notified about whether and to what extent their personal and financial information has been compromised. I am concerned that PlayStation Network users’ personal and financial information may have been inappropriately accessed by a third party. Compounding this concern is the troubling lack of notification from Sony about the nature of the data breach.”

You can read the entire letter that the very responsible Senator Richard Blumenthal writes to SCEA president Jack Tretton, here.

UPDATE: PSN is Down and Hacked - Tips for Credit Card Security

Update: As of 6pm reliable sources are reporting credit card information probably has been compromised on the PSN. This means that if you use the PSN, hackers probably have your credit card information. You should probably read this article, and then look to the bottom of the page for some advice on what to do.

The PSN (Playstation Network) is still experiencing technical problems this week. This is a very unfortunate problem for PS3 owners, especially when you consider that the PSN service stopped working last week. Last Friday, we saw that Sony said these technical problems affecting both the PSN and the Qriocity musical service were being caused by “An external intrusion,” which many people initially interpreted as a form of piracy caused by hackers. This was particularly true considering that from Sony’s legal point of view the PS3 recently experienced many forms of high-publicity online piracy associated with the PS3. 

The really stressful dilemma with these PSN troubles is that Sony claims there may be personal data that may have been “compromised” on the PSN. Compromised is a word that has a very large scope, which is a bit disturbing to some people. Does this mean that personal data such as screen names has been compromised by gaming thieves? Or does this mean that personal data such as credit card information has been compromised by financial thieves? 

Based on the way this situation was recently described on Sony’s Playstation Blog, it appears that Sony did recognize what was happening fairly quickly – motivating them to shut down the PSN service right away. Let’s just hope no form of problems end up haunting the users of the PSN. When personal information is stolen and abused, it really is annoying to people in the 21st century. 

Regrettably, as of April 26, 2011, Sony is still saying they do not have an update or time frame when the PSN or Qriocity services will be functioning correctly online again. Thankfully, Patrick Seybold, speaking on behalf of Sony, has said that he is aware of the fact that PS3 owners are waiting for additional information regarding when the PSN and Qriocity services will be online again. Although the PSN online gaming environment is still down, at least Sony is aware of the fact that consumers aren’t happy. Sony’s public statements suggest they are doing their best to fix the problem. 

Originally, many people thought these online problems were being caused by another group of high-publicity hackers that had breached the PSN again. However, most industry analysts now believe Sony is having some technical problems internally with their online servers. This seems like a reasonable theory considering there are quite a few PS3 games scheduled for release soon. Perhaps one of these external disc-based games has caused some internal compatibility issues with the online servers.

Many gamers point out this could not have happened at a worse time for Sony. There was a recent banking holiday in Europe, which meant gamers had plenty of time to play online. Plus, Microsoft recently gave all Xbox 360 owners in Europe a free weekend of Xbox Live service in order to try and set a world record in online gaming. This really took a lot of attention away from the PS3 and shifted it towards the Xbox 360 in parts of the world that do not speak the English language. 

Let’s hope Sony can get these problems with the PSN online service solved quickly. A lot of PS3 owners are very disappointed right now, since they can’t play online with their friends anymore. Kids at school and adults at work that enjoy talking about videogames aren’t talking about playing games online on their PS3. This certainly helps the competition, especially when you consider Microsoft is currently running a beta test online with this year’s most-anticipated game of all – Gears of War 3. 

Controversy is a website that will keep you updated on the status of the PSN online service. We will let you know when the PSN service starts working properly again.

UPDATE (6:30pm 4/26/2011)

Many websites have confirmed that the PSN has in fact been compromised in ways that put credit card data of PS3 owners at risk. My best advice right now is for you to take a look at the great article on IGN that talks about "How to Protect Yourself." You can take a look at this great article here.

For now, I can briefly give you some tips on how to monitor your credit information. First, monitor your credit cards that have been used with the PSN service. You can easily do this online in the same way you pay credit cards online. If you see that something was purchased that you didn't buy, make sure and report it to the phone number on the back of your credit card. As long as you do this within the appropriate time period (usually 60 days), you will not be required to pay for this illegal purchase. Also, by reporting the illegal purchase, you will be helping to track down the hackers.

Second, make sure that you try to keep track of when your credit card statements normally arrive in the mail. If you suddenly realize "Hey, my credit card statement should have arrived in the mail by now," it means your statement was either lost in the mail or sent to a different address by a hacker. This needs to be brought to the attention of the credit card company right away so they can find out what is going on in a way that makes it so you are not charged for things you didn't buy.

Finally, if you start receiving credit card bills from cards you didn't previously have, if you start receiving calls from debt collectors, or if you are declined approval for credit cards, car loans, or mortgages that you should have been approved of, it may indicate your identity has been stolen. I strongly suggest you visit that article on IGN in order to learn more. Whenever a company like Sony allows software piracy and hacking to occur on this level, it really is an unfortunate scenario that costs consumers a lot of time and money. 

The Third Xbox is in Development!

Microsoft has recently started posting job offers to engineers. The way the job descriptions describe the situation, it appears obvious the jobs will be focused on the design of the successor to the Xbox 360. But several analysts have pointed out that since Microsoft hasn’t even determined which parts will be used in the third Xbox, it means the Xbox 360 has a lot of life ahead of it.

This seems particularly true when you consider Nintendo will be releasing the Wii 2 console in 2012 to be a direct competitor of the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles. Obviously, Nintendo would not want to release a Wii 2 console that would see vastly superior competition just a short time after its release. Let’s assemble the facts so that we can try and come up with a fact-based theory.

Here is a list of facts we know so far:

* Nintendo recently announced the Wii 2 will be released in 2012. The Wii 2 will not be a direct competitor of the PS4 or the third Xbox. The Wii 2 will be the direct competitor of the Xbox 360 and PS3. I wrote an article about this here, and another article with additional information here.

* The hardware specifications of the Wii 2 show it will offer performance similar to what is used by the Xbox 360, PS3, and PCs of today. Wii 2 uses 512MB of RAM, just like Xbox 360 and PS3. Wii 2 uses a GPU that is nearly identical to the one in the Xbox 360. The same can be said about the 3.0Ghz tri-core CPU used by the Wii 2 compared to the 3.2Ghz tri-core CPU used by the Xbox 360.

* The third Xbox currently rumored to be in the very early stages of development will obviously not be competing directly against the Wii 2, since that would mean it is competing directly against the Xbox 360.

* Nintendo feels confident enough to release the Wii 2 in 2012 because they believe the eighth generation of videogames represented by the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and Wii 2 still has a lot of life in it.

* Sony said the PS3 will have a 10-year life expectancy. If this is true, the PS3 is on schedule to be released in 2016 – ten years after the release of the PS3.

Now that these facts have been gathered, we can try to form some theories and hypotheses. If the PS3 had a 10-year life expectancy, it seems reasonable that the Xbox 360 would also have a life expectancy of 10 years. In this scenario, the third Xbox would be released worldwide in late 2015 – 10 years after the release of the Xbox 360. This seems like a logical theory based on the facts available and the success that Microsoft has enjoyed by beating Sony to market by one year.

From this point of view, it isn't a surprise or a concern that Microsoft is waiting on assembling engineers for development of the next Xbox. Even PCs at their highest and most expensive points right now do not offer a significant improvement over what is seen in the graphics offered by Xbox 360 and PS3. This is important because history has always shown that whenever a new generation of consoles has been released, there is a brief period where the consoles have the hardware advantage over PCs.

For example, when Xbox 360 launched in late 2005, it did so with a revolutionary ATI GPU based on Unified Shader technology, which PC graphics cards didn't see until 2007. The same thing can be said about the eDRAM technology used in the Xbox 360. And in 2005 when Xbox 360 launched with a tri-core CPU, PCs were only using dual-core CPU processors.

We haven't seen technology evolve enough for a new generation of consoles to replace Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii 2. Remember, based on the specifications known so far, the Wii 2 is evolutionary – intended to compete directly with the Xbox 360 and PS3 in a high-definition online environment. This is an online environment where the Wii 2 is at a big disadvantage compared to Xbox Live.

The third Xbox will be revolutionary due to the fact that it will be made up of customized technology that PCs eventually become based on in order to make multiplatform programming easier for developers. Over the course of time, PCs will eventually catch up and overtake the consoles again. This is a cycle that has continuously repeated itself throughout videogame history. PC technology is the one form of technology that we can look at and use as a constant measuring stick to estimate when we might see new consoles overtake high-end computers.

I believe consoles will not be able to make a significant improvement over PCs until at least 2014 or 2015. This is when rumors indicate new forms of technology will be available for use at a price the public would see as reasonable. But just because technology is available doesn’t necessarily mean companies will want to rush something to market.

From a business perspective, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are only now starting to reach their peak. Xbox 360 is now the top-selling console every month in North America and other English-speaking parts of the world. And only recently has the PS3 started consistently earning net profits each financial quarter.

With that in mind, Microsoft and Sony probably aren’t in any rush to kill off the Xbox 360 and PS3, even if the technology was available. Microsoft recently released the Kinect, which immediately became the fastest-selling electronic item in history. By selling ten million units within a 60-day time period, Kinect is now in the Guiness Book of World Records. It would be foolish to put an end to the life of an Xbox 360 performing that well!

Sony’s initial investments in the launch of the PS3 caused a net loss of nearly $4 billion. After the disappointing launch of the PS3, Sony continuously saw net losses of hundreds-of-millions of dollars each financial quarter afterwards. From a financial point of view, it seems reasonable to presume that Sony wants the PS3 to last until 2016, if possible. This would be the only way for the PS3 to have any chance of earning an overall net profit during the course of its life on the market.

At this point in time I really doubt we will see a new Xbox console by 2014. But, we do know that Microsoft wants to expand the Halo series and Gears of War series. One hypothesis of mine is that a new series known as Pendulum Wars (a prequel to Gears of War) would be released with the third Xbox. If Epic spent three years developing this game, it would be ready by the end of 2014.

The question is if the technology available by 2014 would offer revolutionary advancements that a competitor like Sony would not be able to eclipse two years later. To be honest, I think Microsoft probably could have a big game from Epic, such as The Pendulum Wars, released by late 2014. But, it might be better for Microsoft to take their time getting everything right and putting all the icing on the cake. This would probably make 2015 a better release date, especially since Microsoft would continue earning money from the Xbox 360 the whole time.

UPDATE: Wii 2 - Additional Info

UPDATE to my previous article here.

Over the course of the day, several new pieces of information have been revealed about the Wii 2.

First, it appears Nintendo will not be concentrating on 3D HDTV sets with the Wii 2. This is not a surprise, considering less than 1% of HDTV sets offer compatibility with 3D technology. Nintendo didn’t focus on HDTV sets with the Wii and they are not focusing on 3D HDTV sets with the Wii 2. Plus, using 3D technology has a negative impact on graphics, since it requires additional processing.

Second, the controller of the Wii 2 will apparently be some form of tablet technology. In other words, it will be similar to an iPad, but it will have buttons on it. This is going to be one of the big surprises that will be unveiled at E3. I know I'm already looking forward to seeing this!

Finally, the Wii 2 appears to offer hardware performance very similar to what is currently seen in the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 uses a 3.2Ghz triple-core CPU along with a custom GPU from ATI. The Xbox 360 GPU shares many similarities with the R500 and R600 series of PC graphics cards from ATI. The R600 series assimilated many of the custom Xbox 360 technologies such as eDRAM technology and the Unified Shader architecture. This shows how far ahead of its time the Xbox 360 GPU was, since PC graphics cards didn’t see those features until 2007. The Xbox 360 hardware includes 512MB of Unified RAM and 10MB of eDRAM.

According to reliable sources, the Wii 2 will be based on a custom triple-core PowerPC processor from IBM. The Wii 2 will also probably be using an AMD graphics processor offering performance similar to an ATI 700 series graphics card. The Wii 2 will also include 512MB of RAM. This means the Wii 2 hardware will be virtually identical to the Xbox 360, which will make ports to and from the PC and Xbox 360 very easy and very inexpensive. It appears the Wii 2 will probably have the hardware edge over the Xbox 360, but it seems as though the high-end PC will remain king of graphics.

Compared to the PS3, the Wii 2 is very different. The PS3 uses 512MB of Non-Unified RAM, and is based on an outdated Non-Unified architecture. The overall design of the PS3 shares nothing in common with the Wii 2. The PS3 hardware has a reputation for being difficult, time-consuming, and expensive to program, since it is not based on standard PC technology that developers are familiar with. Ports to and from PC and Xbox 360 games often result in the PS3 version having graphics that aren’t as good as their counterparts. The same can be said about multiplatform games released simultaneously for PC, Xbox 360, and PS3.

This trend looks to continue for the PS3. In fact, it appears there is a risk that the situation will become even worse for the PS3, since the balance beam will be tipping even further away from the PS3. The Wii 2 will carry a lot of weight with third-party publishers looking to reduce development costs. Multiplatform games will be virtually identical on the PC, Wii 2, and Xbox 360, while the PS3 versions will probably offer a lower level of performance than ever. Developers aren’t going to want to hold themselves back from doing the best things possible on PC, Xbox 360, and Wii 2, just to keep the PS3 happy. The main areas that will be affected in multiplatform releases are resolution and frame rate.

Nintendo appears to have done an excellent job in the design and concept of the Wii 2. The hardware and features included in the Wii 2 have already generated a lot of hype due to the fact that they will be optimized to work with HDTV sets and home theater surround sound. This year’s E3 really will be one of the most exciting in a long time. I believe it will be particularly interesting to see how Microsoft and Sony respond to this announcement from Nintendo. Personally, I predict a price drop of at least $50 from both of them.