sony

Many believe violent video games are unhealthy for kids. Last month, Sony proved it: a decapitated goat was the centerpiece of a party the company threw in Greece to promote the PlayStation 2 title God of War II.

The theatrical dramatization, which according to reports, also featured topless women feeding grapes to partygoers, was supposed to be in keeping with the video game's Greek mythology theme. But according to media reports from Europe, animal rights groups were outraged and video game critics said the scene was symbolic of the industry's blood lust.

Sony issued a press release apologizing … Read more

As Lenovo can attest, it's tough to keep a secret in the Internet age. Today Sony joined the club of PC makers with leaked product plans, as forum posters at NotebookReview uncovered details of new Vaio laptops buried deep on Sony's European site.

The new models, reportedly due in July, will include the 11.1-inch ultraportable TZ11 (a follow-up to the existing TX series), the 13.3-inch SZ5, and two new models in the 15.4-inch FZ series. In addition to refreshing the systems with Intel's new Santa Rosa chipset and X3100 graphics, Sony will also be … Read more

Need that next on-the-go gaming session to go all night? The new Extended PSP Battery from Blue Raven Technology may be your dream product. The snap-on, lithium-polymer, 4,500mAh battery pack aims to deliver as much as 15 hours of PSP playtime--a big step up from the 3 to 5 hours offered by the PSP's default battery. But the increased playtime comes at a cost: The Extended PSP Battery is about the same size and weight as the PSP itself (5 ounces for the battery vs. 6.2 for the PSP), and it costs a whopping $90. On the … Read more

Nintendo said Friday that it would address shortages of its hit Wii video game console by ramping up production.

According to the Associated Press, the video game giant's president, Satoru Iwata acknowledged that "we have not been able to properly foresee demand."

The company said it would boost sales of the Wii--which has dominated the next-generation console battle against Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 since it was released in November--so that deliveries would increase by next month.

The news came a day after Nintendo released fiscal 2007 results showing that revenue had … Read more

Sony has revealed its follow-up to the PlayStation 2's EyeToy, and it looks pretty impressive for a glorified Webcam. The PlayStation Eye will let your PlayStation 3 watch and listen to you as you watch and listen to it. The Eye can capture VGA video at 60 frames per second, or QVGA (320 X 240) video at 120 frames per second. It records sound through a four-microphone array, and can save photos, videos, and audio clips to your PS3's hard drive with the included EyeCreate software.

The upcoming PS3 title The Eye of Judgment will take full use … Read more

The Wall Street Journal is reporting (subscription required for full story) that Ken Kutaragi, creator of Sony's PlayStation console line, has stepped down from his post at the company.

While it was originally expected to give Sony new momentum, PS3 sales were ultimately disappointing, and according to the Journal article, the company is now dealing with $2 billion in losses related to its video games division over the past year (ending March 31.)

Sony CEO Howard Stringer has famously been reshuffling the company's executive lineup since last fall.

UPDATE: Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. confirmed Kutaragi's departure to … Read more

The notebook battery recall isn't over yet.

Acer, the fast-growing Taiwanese PC maker, announced on Wednesday a voluntary recall of 27,000 lithium ion notebook batteries made by Sony. A danger exists that the batteries can short-circuit and burst into flames.

Millions of notebook batteries produced by Sony have been recalled since last year. Acer was one of the few major companies not impacted by the battery recall to date. Apple, Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba have all had to recall batteries.

The Acer TravelMate notebooks containing the batteries subject to the recall were sold from May 2004 through November … Read more

And then there were four: quadruplet Sony HD camcorders, that is. When they ship on June 27, the $1,200 Memory Stick Duo-based Handycam HDR-CX7 and $1,400 hard-disk-based HDR-SR7 will join the tape-based HDR-HC7 and DVD-based HDR-UX7 to provide consumers with an almost bewildering array of HD options.

They differ primarily by storage media. All use the same 1/2.9-inch, 3.2-megapixel ClearVid CMOS sensor, recording video at 2.3-megapixel (HD) or 1.7-megapixel (SD) resolution before downsampling and encoding to 1080i HD (1,920x540) or SD (720x480), respectively. They also shoot photos at native 2.3-megapixel (16:… Read more

Though CTIA has come and gone, there's still some news from the show that's worth mentioning. Aside from its gallery of new cell phones, such as the Z750 and the W580, the company also announced the Z750 would be the first cell phone to support the new Java Platform 8 (JP-8). JP-8, which is based on the Mobile Services Architecture (MSA) Java umbrella standard, not only brings a new set of applications to handsets such as the Z750, it aims to standardize Java development as a whole. At CTIA I got a chance to peek at what JP-8 … Read more