Since its 2006 debut, the PlayStation 3 has sold 16.84 million units worldwide, according to new financial documents released by Sony.

During the second quarter of Sony's 2008 fiscal year, which ended on September 30, 2.43 million PS3s were sold, adding to the 14.41 million that had been sold as of June 30, 2008.

In all, Sony expects to sell 10 million PlayStation 3 units during this fiscal year, which ends on March 31, 2009. To reach that goal, Sony will have to sell 6.01 million PS3s across the next two quarters, one of which covers the lucrative Christmas season.

Lifetime worldwide figures for the PlayStation 2 and PSP hardware are not available, as 2007 was the first fiscal year that Sony declared sales, not shipment numbers.

As of July 30, Nintendo's Wii had sold 29.6 million units worldwide. Microsoft has not provided worldwide sales figures on the Xbox 360 since March of this year, when the console was at 19 million worldwide.

In line with the lowered expectations, Sony's operating income for... Read more

Sony is expecting to close 2008 with a net profit 38% lower than was expected, with the company's games division actively losing money for the electronics and entertainment giant.

"The Japanese firm's outlook is bleak," wrote Forbes, citing a surging Japanese yen as hurting Sony's ability to export its products. Added to that, currency exchanges favor Korean rivals in consumer electronics, Sony's bread-and-butter products.

Video games are part of Sony's problem, as the games division has failed to recoup the PlayStation 3's $3 billion development cost and hardware losses despite what Forbes refers to as "early 2008 promises of profits."

Sony's overall profit tanked in its Q2 (July-September), dropping by half to 73.7 billion yen ($754.9 million)--and 60.7 billion of that yen came from one-time sales of some of its holdings.

"This is just the beginning of a big earnings collapse," said a Tokyo analyst to Forbes, speaking anonymously. "Given the track record of this company, it will under-deliver all the way."

With a new and improved screen at the center of Sony's new PSP-3000 model of its PlayStation Portable handheld, some users are surprised by appears to be a step backwards in quality.

At issue are scanlines, the phenomenon pictured left, which inspired a user on the PlayStation.com forums to take comparison shots.

Sony has issued a response on the issue, and the scanlines are the result of the new LCD itself. "By improving LCD response time to reduce ghosting, the horizontal-line phenomenon becomes more visible," reads a Sony Japan statement on PSP Fanboy.

For miffed owners of a shiny new PSP, the outlook isn't good. "Since this is caused by hardware characteristics, there is no plan to fix it with system software update."

Sony Computer Entertainment America also put out a statement echoing the statements of the mother ship. The PSP-3000 has been on the market for one week in North America.

Sony may be trying to tempt gamers into the PlayStation 3's new Trophy achievement system, according to the latest rumor from the world of print magazines.

"We've heard that SCEA is mulling over some sort of Trophy reward system," says the Official PlayStation Magazine as quoted by CVG.

"We doubt it'll be cash (or the equivalent)," continues the mag, "but we suspect it might be exclusive access to early betas and the like," the magazine speculates.

In recent months, small purchases like Sony's Qore magazine and game pre-orders have granted players early access to betas and demos like Resistance 2, Motorstorm Pacific Rift, and Valkyria Chronicles.

Blake's Take: Whether or not it's confirmed, it's a great idea. Rewarding players' skill is a worthy alternative to only rewarding gamers who shell out money in stores, whether retail or online. And for the gamers who have long resisted achievement systems, saying they don't care about the digital badges of honor, it's a solid way to incite a little enthusiasm.

Certain functions of the PS3's online PlayStation Network service--specifically account registration, management and PlayStation Store access--have been taken offline for "temporary unscheduled maintenance," Sony has revealed on the PlayStation Blog.

Fortunately, online gameplay is unaffected by this downtime--something that wasn't available during Tuesday's maintenance period--though it may affect the weekly PlayStation Store updates, which generally hit on Thursday afternoons.

A specific reason for the downtime was not provided, though the offline functions seem to coincide with the revisions made in this week's PS3 and PSP firmware updates.

The PlayStation 3's online service for multiplayer and digital downloads will be down later today for maintenance purposes, Sony has confirmed with Joystiq.

The service will be unavailable today from 2PM - 7 PM EDT / 11AM - 4PM PDT.

It is unknown exactly what the maintenance entails, though PSP owners will soon gain direct access to the online PlayStation Store via a new firmware update due this month.

Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida showed up at this week's Tokyo Game Show and, typical of a Sony executive, had quite a few opinions on his company and his competitors.

Yoshida was generous in his praise toward rival Microsoft and the Xbox 360, saying that he would "really like to see both PS3 and 360 succeed [in Japan]" in an interview with Eurogamer. He added a compliment for the upcoming New Xbox Experience: "I think it's quite nice. I like the Avatar designs they're working on."

The New Xbox Experience: Sony-approved

"The new games coming out on 360 and PS3 help to get consumers more interested in this generation of gaming," Yoshida continued, intentionally leaving out... Read more

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan announced today that it will announce 14 new games at the Tokyo Game Show, which starts next Thursday.

Eleven of those will be announced for the PlayStation 3 while three will hit the PSP handheld.

Within those eleven PS3 games, Sony Computer Entertainment is publishing nine. Konami and Japanese publisher Irem will each announce one new entry for the console. Sony will be publishing all three of its to-be-announced PSP games.

Sony will not be alone in the announcement frenzy of Japan's biggest games industry trade show. Nintendo will be first to the party with a media briefing this week. Microsoft has not been specific about games on display at this year's Tokyo Game Show, but the company will have a keynote speech on the first day of the expo.

Video game-related stocks have long been seen as a safe haven for investors, but even Blizzard was feeling the crunch today after the record-breaking 777 point drop on the Dow Jones industrial average.

The tech-based NASDAQ index saw a similar slide, dropping 199 points after the US House of Representatives voted down a bill to rescue the financial sector with $700 billion of taxpayer money.

The US gaming industry saw widespread drops, with Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts both seeing major hits. A mess of ugly numbers provided by GameSpot:

The share price of Activision Blizzard (World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero World Tour), the newly minted biggest third-party publisher on the planet, slid 13.8 percent ($2.26) to end the day at $14.12. Former top dog Electronic Arts (Madden NFL 09) saw $3.63 shaved off of its stock price, ending the day down 9.16 percent at $36 even.

THQ (Saints Row 2) lost 7 percent, or $0.87, to close at $11.48, and shares in Take-Two Interactive (Grand Theft Auto IV) lost 4.52 percent ($0.73) to close at $15.43--nearly $10 less than its asking price one month ago.

GameSpot further notes that overseas publishers and console manufacturers were not immune from the turmoil, with Microsoft, Sony, and Eidos parent SCi Entertainment all posting significant losses. Publisher Ubisoft dropped a massive $17.92 per share to close at $65.37.

Update: Sony has clarified that the price cut stems from Blockbluster itself, not Sony.

Original Story: Sony will be dropping the price of the discontinued 40GB PlayStation 3 hardware to $360 this weekend--a $40 cut--retailer Blockbluster has confirmed with Kotaku.

Back at E3, Sony announced that it would soon replace the formerly $400 40GB PS3 with a model that packed an 80GB HDD and the same functionality for the same price. Compared to the $500 model, the $400 PS3 only has two USB ports and is not backwards compatible with PlayStation 2 games.

As Sony has repeatedly vowed that it does not plan to drop the PS3's price this year, it is presumed that this cut is merely an effort to clear shelf space before the new model hits.

The company has also announced plans to replace the existing $500 80GB PlayStation 3 with a $500 160GB version in November, which will likely prompt another round of temporary price reductions as retailers clear out the previous model.

Along with larger hard drives, the revised PlayStation 3 SKUs will pack the updated DualShock 3 controllers instead of the vibration-less Sixaxis controllers.

Game maker Sony Computer Entertainment and one-time employee David Jaffe have been named in a lawsuit that accuses both Sony and Jaffe of blatantly stealing the work of two others and using that information in the God of War video game series.

Plantiffs Jonathon Bissoon-Dath and Jennifer Barrette-Herzog say that they sent a screenplay entitled Olympiad and an original illustrated map to Sony Pictures Entertainment in 2002. Three years later, a Sony-produced game entitled God of War was on store shelves, which they claim to share many similarities with their work.

"God of War is a derivative work based on and incorporating protected material unlawfully copied by defendants from plantiffs' original works," reads the filing, which was acquired by GamePolitics. "The similarities between plantiffs' works and God of War include similarities of plot, relationships among major characters, themes, setting, mood, pace and dialogue that are unique and pervasive."

Accused similarities include:

• "The original story of how a champion saves Athens from destruction by the invading Spartan army that has been sent by Areas...Athens is backed by Zeus and Athena."
• "The God of War image of the Bottomless Chasm in front of Pandora's Temple were clearly derived [from Barrette-Herzog's original map]."
• "The Champion's family is hacked to pieces...In both stories the Champion feels partially responsible even though he is really not to blame... Read more

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan today pulled back the curtain on the official PlayStation 3 Wireless Headset, which hits Japan on October 30 at 5,000 yen ($46).

The Bluetooth device allows gamers to communicate with other online players for up to eight hours on a single charge, can be charged via USB, and sports a noise canceling feature. In addition to voice chat, the headset allows users to bring up an on-screen indicator showing battery charge, volume levels, connection quality, and mute status.

While the the PS3 is compatible with practically any Bluetooth or USB microphone, this marks the first time that Sony has produced an officially-branded Bluetooth headset. It also represents the first implementation of detailed headset information into the PS3's on-screen display.

Joining the forthcoming PS3 Wireless Keypad as part of Sony's recent focus on communication, the headset is expected to arrive in Europe and North America shortly after its Japanese debut, though Sony has yet to provide any concrete details.

Last week, Japanese publication Famitsu provided the first comparison images highlighting the "wider color gamut and anti-reflection technology" of the new PSP-3000.

GameSpot has now provided a few more pictures, better illustrating the difference between the current PSP-2000 and the PSP-3000 redesign, due out in October.

Sony is being taken to court over technology purportedly covered in a patent owned by Orinda Intellectual Properties USA, Edge has uncovered.

Orinda claims that patent 5,438,560 has been infringed, covers recording and reproducing optical discs such as CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray Discs. The company has filed for an injunction stopping the production and sale of all Blu-ray players including PlayStation 3 systems. Orinda is also asking for "a reasonable royalty" from those Blu-ray players it wants to remove from sale.

Major console manufacturers are sued by supposed patent holders with some frequency, and Sony is no exception. In 2007, for example, Sony settled with force-feedback maker Immersion but had a lawsuit over the Blu-ray Disc format dismissed.

Sony CEO Howard Stringer, pictured at left, confessed that the Wii "may be a superior business model" in a recent interview.

"The major difference lies in the fact that Nintendo makes money with the hardware alone," he explained to German newspaper Die Welt.

As for when Sony will recover the $3 billion it spent on the PlayStation 3, Stringer responded with a laugh, "Not for as long as I live."

He then turned serious. "It will certainly take some time. ... We are currently at the stage in which we need to get a grip on the production costs. That takes time," he said. The CEO stressed that the company is now making more money on PlayStation 3 games than it is losing on hardware sales.

Stringer also cast doubt on recent claims that the PlayStation 3 would see price cuts this year. "I think not," he stated when asked if the system would see a price cut before this Christmas.

Earlier this week, Sony announced that it would be releasing a new PSP model with a "wider color gamut and anti-reflection technology."

Now, Japanese publication Famitsu has provided the comparison to the left, which compares the new PSP-3000 (bottom) to the PSP-2000 model (top) that arrived last fall.

Sporting a built-in microphone as well, the new PSP arrives worldwide in October.

It will arrive in North America on October 14 as part of the $199 Ratchet & Clank Entertainment Pack bundle, which includes a copy of High Impact's platformer Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, a download code for SCE Japan's puzzler echochrome, a copy of the National Treasure 2 film, and a 1GB Memory Stick.

While discussing its record-breaking quarter, retailer GameStop revealed that it expects both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to undergo $50 price cuts by the end of 2008.

A $50 price cut for the Xbox 360 Pro and Elite models has been practically confirmed, with the drop expected to take effect on or around September 7. Whereas the two higher-end Xbox 360 models will drop by $50, the hard drive-less Arcade unit is said to see a reduction of $70, making it $199.

Sony previously stated that it would not drop the price of its various PlayStation 3 units this year. However, the company is introducing higher-capacity PS3 models--the $399 80GB and the $499 160GB bundle--that maintain the existing prices of PS3 hardware.

Sony today announced that a new 160GB PlayStation 3 bundle will soon be making its way to North America.

The large-volume system will come bundled with Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, a voucher for the PlayStation Network title PAIN, and a DualShock 3 controller. The 160GB system carries the same feature list as the 80GB model.

Sony expects the package to sell for $499.99 when it arrives in November.

Sony Computer Entertainment has just unveiled its third redesign of the PSP hardware, labeled the PSP-3000, ComputerAndVideoGames reports.

Due out this fall, the new model boasts an "enhanced LCD screen" that features "a wider color gamut and anti-reflection technology" along with a built-in microphone.

The new hardware will hit North America on October 14 in the new Ratchet & Clank Entertainment Pack bundle, which is priced at $199. Included in the package is High Impact's Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, a download code for SCE Japan's puzzle echochrome, a copy of the National Treasure 2 film, and a 1GB Memory Stick.

The current model of the PSP--the PSP-2000, often referred to as the PSP Slim--currently sells for $170 in the United States and hovers around 199 Euros in Europe.

Sony has brokered an arrangement between the developers of Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Revolution to ensure instrument interoperability on the PlayStation 3, Sony Computer Entertainment PR director Michael Shorrock revealed.

"We have been working closely with Neversoft and Activision, Harmonix and Konami to ensure that PlayStation 3 guitars and drum sets will all feature a basic level of gameplay compatibility," Shorrock wrote on the PlayStation.Blog.

The director explained that both the drum kit and guitar from Neversoft's Guitar Hero World Tour will function with Harmonix's Rock Band 2, and vice versa. Drums and guitars from both titles will be compatible with Zoe Mode's Rock Revolution, while Rock Revolution's drum kit will work with both Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour.

The director further noted that microphones from SCE London Studio's SingStar will also be compatible with Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero World Tour.

"We're still working hard to ensure compatibility between the Guitar Hero and Rock Band titles currently on the market," Sherrock added. "We hope to have an announcement on that shortly."