Late Night Consoling

Speaking to Bloomberg, Sony Computer Entertainment America co-chairman Jack Tretton claimed that Sony may not achieve its already modest PlayStation 3 shipment plans for calendar year 2006 and fiscal year 2007. The company's last stated goals are to ship a total of two million PS3 units worldwide in 2006, with 400,000 units allocated to North America on launch day and 100,000 to Japan on launch day. By the end of the company's fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2007, the company hopes to have shipped six million units worldwide. "The honest answer is it's more of a target," said Tretton about these shipment goals. "Clearly we've had production issues." He did not specify any revised goals for the company. It is unclear whether any potential hits to production will affect launch day numbers.

Earlier this week, Sony lowered its profits forecast for the current fiscal year, citing the recent price cut to the 20GB PS3 model in Japan, under-par performance for PSP, and PS3's delayed launch in Europe. However, the company expects to see an upturn in profits as it enters its next fiscal year.

During Sony's Gamer's Day event yesterday, company executives revealed details regarding how gamers will be able to download and play legacy PlayStation games on current systems. When PlayStation 3 launches, games for the original PlayStation will be sold via download and can be transferred to and played on a PSP. Contrary to certain online reports, PSP owners will also have the option to download PS1 games from Sony's PSP download sites. While the company has not yet demonstrated this functionality, it is likely to operate similarly to the method for using other downloadable content on a PSP.

At the time of the PS3's launch, the console will not be able to play the PS1 games it can transfer to a PSP. That functionality is planned, however, and will come at a later date. Downloadable PlayStation 2 games are also expected at some point in the future. From launch, PS3 will have backwards compatibility with physical PlayStation and PlayStation 2 game discs, but will not provide upscaling or any other kind of visual improvements.

Sony has not yet announced specific pricing for downloadable PS1 games, though at Gamer's Day the company did announce that downloadable content--be it standalone PS3 downloadable games, extra content for games, PS1 games, or other paid content--is likely to top out at $14.99, which also seems to be the high end for Xbox Live Marketplace content.

EA has announced that it is currently developing over 30 games for PlayStation 3, including three launch titles for the system: EA Tiburon's Madden NFL 07, EA Redwood Shores' Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, and EA Black Box's Need for Speed Carbon. The company also expects to have eight to ten games available for the system by the end of March 2007. Beyond the launch games, the remainder of EA's currently announced PS3 lineup is as follows:

- EA Montreal's Army of Two
- Criterion Games' Burnout 5
- DICE's Battlefield: Bad Company
- EA Chicago's Def Jam: Icon
- EA Canada's Fight Night Round 3
- EA LA's Medal of Honor Airborne
- EA Canada's NBA Street
- EA Black Box's SKATE

According to IGN, Digital Eclipse's long promised Xbox Live Arcade port of Midway's Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 appeared briefly on Xbox Live Marketplace for 800 Microsoft Points ($10), but was quickly removed. Xbox Live Arcade games are now always released on a Wednesday and this week's release, Lumines Live!, is already available, so the game's presence on Marketplace today was clearly in error. Still, for those that managed to snag the game when it was up, it appears to be functional, so it is likely to be complete and is likely to arrive officially in the near future.

For reasons beyond immediate comprehension, it seems that Nintendo will only be selling first party component cables for its upcoming Wii console through online stores, according to IGN. The cables will be available on Wii's launch day and, fortunately, from any online retailer rather than solely Nintendo's own store. Component cables will allow games to output in progressive scan mode on compatible TVs.

The "cool stuff" that Microsoft promised would be added during Xbox Live's prolonged downtime has shown up on the My Xbox section of Xbox.com. Now, users can modify several profile options, previously available only on an Xbox 360 console itself, through My Xbox. These options include changing your gamer zone, gamer picture, and privacy settings. It is now also possible to add Microsoft Points to an Xbox Live account through My Xbox, as well as modify billing and account information.