sony

With the video game market credited for racking up $7 billion in annual sales, even trade shows about the industry are big news for legions of loyal gamers. With the demise (or at least downsizing) of the Electronic Entertainment Exposition--the gigantic video game show held in LA each spring--smaller events, such as the Game Developers Conference are picking up the slack.

The show floor is bigger than last year's, and companies such as Sony and Nintendo have set up large E3-style multimedia booths, making the event's higher public profile one of the biggest stories coming out of GDC … Read more

Sony finally unveiled its big PlayStation 3 surprise at GDC 2007. After its short but intense pre-GDC rumor war with Kotaku, Sony announced Home, the new online service for the PS3.

Underneath the marketing hype that Gamespot and News.com both already covered, Home is essentially a cross between Second Life and Nintendo's Mii avatars. PS3 users will get their own customizable avatars and virtual homes with which they can go online, chat with and host friends, find players for online gaming, buy and show off clothing and decorations, accumulate game trophies, and other social gaming activities. The service … Read more

Wi-Fi? Pffft. Sony's late to the wireless photography party, but it bypasses the hot spot in favor of the connected home. Its Cyber-shot DSC-G1 integrates DLNA--Digital Living Network Alliance--wireless connectivity, a superset of Wi-Fi that adds interdevice recognition. So far, though, there aren't many DLNA-enabled devices.

Besides, with its 921,000-pixel, 3.5-inch LCD screen, the G1 is practically a TV (in contrast, the usual camera LCD has about 220,000 pixels). Two gigabytes of internal memory make it possible to carry your whole photo library around with you for display on that huge LCD.

The G1 … Read more

Last Friday we reported on a quote from TV Week that Sony President and COO Stan Glasgow said Sony had plans to cut prices on its Blu-ray players to $299 by the end of the year. Well, don't update your Christmas list just yet. According to a Sony representative, Glasgow was misquoted. What Glasgow said, apparently, was that he felt the $299 price would be the tipping point where the average consumer would start to consider buying a Blu-ray player. Indeed, the Sony spokesman went on to specify that the company has no plans to roll out a Blu-ray … Read more

The TV Week story upon which this blog entry is based was in error, according to a Sony representative. Read the updated blog for the complete story.

It was already pretty big news that Sony would be releasing a $600 Blu-ray player this summer, but it's possible we could see that price drop by half again before the year is over. According to a report by TV Week, Sony President and COO Stan Glasgow said on Monday that Sony might cut the prices on its Blu-ray players to as low as $299. If true, that would be the first … Read more

With the Game Developer's Conference coming up next week in San Francisco, rumors are flying fast and furious about what big announcements will be made by the guys who make those little plastic boxes that sit under your TV.

One rumor making the rounds is about a new feature for the PlayStation 3 called PlayStation Home, which would combine elements of the Nintendo Wii's Mii avatars with the Xbox 360's achievement points, creating an appealing social-networking tool. According to popular game blog Kotaku, this will be part of Sony Computer Entertainment President Phil Harrison's keynote address. … Read more

ATRACLife revealed photos of Sony's NW-A800 series MP3 player not so long ago, but inquiries to my Sony reps garnered no official comments. However, I can now say with certainty that the NW-A800, a video-capable Walkman with an ample screen and Sony's typical sleek stylings, is indeed a reality. The player is now available for pre-order on the company's European Web site, which is listing four colors of the device: black, white, pink, and "violet" (looks blue to me). At first glance, it appeared that Sony was behind the times where flash memory is concerned: … Read more

Fans of Sony products are often disappointed at the January Consumer Electronics Show to discover that the company doesn't have very much to say. Sure, there's a big Sony booth and a handful of token product announcements and press releases, but it's always small potatoes compared to the dozens of new items on display from competitors such as Samsung, Philips, and Panasonic. But that's entirely by design: rather than get lost in the CES maelstrom, Sony opts to launch its new line of products at its own Sony-only line show. We've got complete coverage of … Read more

Sony's latest pair of superzooms, called the DSC-H7 and DSC-H9, add longer zoom lenses, higher resolutions, face detection, and a handful of other nifty features, including high-definition output. This last feature has found its way into all the company's new Cyber-shots, as was mentioned in our post about the new W- and T-series cameras.

Both of the new models include 8-megapixel CCD sensors and 15x optical, 31mm to 465mm-eqivalent, zoom lenses with optical image stabilization. Just in case that stabilization isn't enough for you, Sony also upped the top sensitivity rating on this year's models to … Read more