North Americans waiting for a PSP-playable localization of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment are going to have to wait a little bit longer. The Atlus JRPG, which came out on PSN this week as a $9.99 PSone classic, can be downloaded onto PS3, but not as yet onto Vita or PSP.

Sony Computer Entertainment America says the game was intended to be compatible with Vita and PSP, and is now working on a fix to ensure it is. There's no exact ETA, although community manager Morgan Haro says "worst case scenario" is that it takes a few weeks.

Sure, it's a bit later than expected, but Rovio is preparing to finally unveil its Angry Birds cartoon series. Angry Birds Toons is set to premiere next month – "March 16/17" is listed in the trailer above. So what time is equidistant between March 16 and March 17? 12:01am? It'll debut sometime that weekend, the Angry Birds Twitter account says.

An Angry Birds movie is also in production, with a planned release of 2016. Currently the film project has two producers attached to oversee development: executive producer David Maisel, whose work includes Iron Man, and producer John Cohen, who is best known for his work on Despicable Me.

Through April 1, every $50 spent using your "SEN Wallet" gets you $10 back. That's fancy talk for putting money into your PSN account and spending it. Sony has a list of suggestions on the PlayStation Blog, including pre-orders of MLB The Show 13, BioShock Infinite, and more, but any purchase adding up to $50 will do.

This is a really great time to get a year of PlayStation Plus and start loading up on all the included games, especially with an extra three months added to your order through March 4 – though as that costs $49.99, you might have to top up with, like, an avatar.

Continue Reading

Tomorrow's PSN content dump unlocks Plants vs. Zombies on the PS Vita for all PS Plus members, free of charge. The usual asking price for Popcap's tower defense darling is $10.49 – PS Plus members will find the free game available in their Instant Game Collection when PSN updates tomorrow.

In addition to the free game, the PlayStation Blog has given us a look at some of the discounts on offer in this week's update. Quirky rhythm game Retro/Grade from 24 Caret Games will be on sale for a mere $2.44 this week, plus the winners of the PSN Gamers' Choice Awards contest have been determined – a promotion that asked gamers to vote on which games they'd like to see discounted. Highlights include reduced prices on PS All-Stars: Battle Royale, Sound Shapes and Escape Plan.

Sony's PlayStation 2013 event just concluded in New York City and while many developers and business types talked about the future of PlayStation 4 and what's possible, many concrete details were missing, like a price tag.

Perhaps the biggest omission was the PlayStation 4 hardware itself. Sony gave us a glimpse at the new DualShock controller – which features a new rounded design and built-in touch pad – but we didn't get to see the console. What does the PS4 look like? What will PlayStation Plus entail on PS4? Will it even exist on PS4?

Another letdown was the lack of first-party games. Sure, Sucker Punch unveiled a new Infamous game, Guerilla Games gave us a taste of Killzone: Shadow Fall and we caught a glimpse of a new IP in Knack, but where was The Last Guardian? We couldn't get a new Uncharted? What new games we did see, aside from those mentioned, were pretty tech demos for games a long way off or pre-rendered stuff. Like Square Enix's presentation and Capcom's Deep Down.

Where was the PS Vita love? All PlayStation 4 games allow for remote play on PS Vita, so why not mention a price drop? Japan is dropping the price of the PS Vita later this month and tonight would've been a great place to announce a price drop for North America.

In the end, at least we got to see the successor to Ravi drums, Media Molecule's PS Move tech demo. That's something.

This is it: Sony's big PlayStation event where we expect to hear about the company's next-generation console. The stream will be online 30 minutes before the event kicks off at 6PM ET tonight (3PM PT, 11PM Brit-time), and live video should kick in five minutes prior to the event start time. Our liveblog can be found here.

Last week, a report from the Wall Street Journal suggested that Sony's next console will be able to stream PS3 games over the internet – the result of a $380 million acquisition of cloud-based gaming company Gaikai. We've also seen supposed leaked images of a new PlayStation controller, sporting a new analog stick design, more rounded edges and a small touchscreen.

The "Day 1 Digital" thing may have ended, but you can still frequently buy games digitally on day 1 on PSN. Case in point: Crysis 3.

Perhaps the exact opposite of Crysis 3, at least in terms of processor requirement, is Capcom Arcade Cabinet. It's out now, a free download with a free copy of 1987's Black Tiger included, and more old arcade games to buy. On Vita, Patapon 3 is now available to download, and be sure to get the free Maverick Hunter X if you're a Plus user. Check out the full release list at the PlayStation Blog.

The third annual PSN Gamers' Choice Awards are open for voting today through February 25, with winners announced and discounted on Tuesday, February 26. The awards cover 10 categories, including Best PSN Exclusive, Best PSN Game, Best Indie Game, Best PS3 Game and Best PS Vita Game.

Awards show powerhouse Journey is nominated in three categories: Best PSN Exclusive against Tokyo Jungle and The Unfinished Swan, Best PSN Game against The Walking Dead and Sound Shapes, and Best Indie Game against Sound Shapes and Rainbow Moon. The Best PS3 Full Game nominees are Borderlands 2, Assassin's Creed 3 and PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, while Vita nods to Gravity Rush, Super Stardust Delta and Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack.

Vote for your favorites via the PlayStation Store or its website.

You are the fictional niece of game designer Keiji Inafune, visiting his new theme park for the first time. However, the terrorist Count Hogstein has invaded the park and kidnapped the staff on that very day. There's nothing for you to do but take part in Hogstein's twisted games, in an attempt to save Inafune and, perhaps, find love among the other participants.

This is possibly one of the best premises for a game ever, and definitely the best premise for an otome game, interesting enough for us to be curious despite the Idea Factory developer credit.

Aksys Games is bringing this unique romantic adventure, Sweet Fuse: At Your Side, to PSP in North America this summer.

Continue Reading

Continue Reading

Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, the original PlayStation game and second chapter in the Persona 2 saga, has a new ESRB rating for the PS3 and PSP, suggesting a launch on PSN.

The first Persona 2 installment, Innocent Sin, made the trek to PSP in 2011, with nary a word on Eternal Punishment following suit. An ESRB rating, however, is a fairly solid indication of an impending launch. Eternal Punishment received the same rating on PS3 and PSP as it did on PS1 all those years ago, T for Teen. Eternal Punishment on PS3 and PSP is published by SCEA, rather than Atlus, which published the PS1 version and Innocent Sin's iterations.

Patapon 3 will become a PS Vita-compatible game next week. The news comes via the latest PlayStation Blogcast, episode number 62, wherein social media manager Sid Shuman and crew confirm the new PS Vita compatibility will be available alongside next week's PSN update.

Predecessors Patapon and Patapon 2 are both compatible with PS Vita. A multiplayer demo for Patapon 3 was issued ahead of its launch a few years back, though our quick check on PSN shows that free demo is no longer available.

Black Ops 2, Far Cry 3 and Just Dance 4 were January's best-selling games, according to NPD sales data, with Capcom's rebooted DmC: Devil May Cry sliding in at sixth place. As per usual, the full list of the month's top 10 best-selling games can be found after the break.

During the five-week period running from December 30, 2012, through February 2, 2013, the combined might of the video game sales industry's physical retail channels earned a total of $834.7 million, a nine percent year-over-year increase as compared with January 2011's performance. This is the first time the industry has reported an annualized overall increase in sales in at least twelve months.

2013's "January" is five weeks, as opposed to the traditional four, for calculation purposes. The NPD Group makes this adjustment once every six or seven years to combat data drift in its reporting, much in the same way our calendar system implements a Leap Day to correct for discrepancies between the number of days in the year, and the length of Earth's orbit.

Therefore, January's year-over-year increase is actually the direct result of the extended recording period. If January's overall results are "corrected" for the additional time, the industry's physical retail performance is actually down by 13 percent, rather than up by nine. Regardless, hardware sales in general were responsible for $205 million of the period's total invoice, up four percent since last year without corrections and down 17 percent with.

Once again, the Xbox 360 was the best-selling piece of overall hardware, as it has been for the last 18 months. January was also the console's twenty-fifth month as the leading console.

Accessories sales saw the largest development in sales, increasing by 30 percent pre-corrections and four percent post – $256.6 million in January of this year versus $198.1 million last year. Meanwhile, Software sales saw the smallest pre-correction annualized jump with $373.1 million for the period, which is just one percent above the segment's earnings in 2011. After corrections, that difference drops to a 19 percent year-over-year loss.

Continue Reading

The 2013 NBA All-Star game kicks off on February 15, and to celebrate 2K Sports is hosting a weeklong sale on NBA 2K13 content, from February 12 - 19. Included in the sale is the game itself, for 50 percent off – $30 in the US for Xbox 360 and PS3, and $10 for PSP. The iOS and Android version is $3, down from $8.

The "All Star Presented by Sprite" content pack is half-off, for 200 MSP on Xbox 360 or $2.50 on PS3, and snag 10,000 virtual currency for 120 MSP or $1.50. All sale content offered for Sony devices is available in North America only.

Play ball! Er – start dribbling! Oh, shut up.

Continue Reading

Back in the day, used to be that when a game wasn't released in a certain area, that area never got to experience that game. After a year and a half of being on Japanese store shelves, Final Fantasy Type-O doesn't look like it's getting localized in the US. Luckily, a few fans are up to the immense task of translating the PSP RPG.

GBA Temp forum poster SkyBladeCloud has laid bare all his programming work on the Final Fantasy Type-O ROM on the forums, producing the above shaky-cam video of his work so far. He's not necessarily soliciting translators for assistance, but has made it much easier for fan translation to succeed by reverse-engineering a majority of the game engine. Now Japanese-fluent gamers can help make a translation a reality.

Final Fantasy Type-O launched on the PSP in Japan in October of 2011, at the tail-end of the PSP's life cycle. Type-O uses a hybrid battle system not unlike Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII and The 3rd Birthday – a mixture of turn-based and real-time action combat.

Democratic Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, spoke with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace about President Barack Obama's proposal to research the link between media and violent acts. Pelosi presented a comprehensive approach to research and reform, noting that current evidence didn't suggest violent video games equate violent people.

"I'm a mother, I'm a grandmother, but the evidence says that in Japan, for example, they have the most violent games than the rest and the lowest mortality from guns," Pelosi said. "I don't know what the explanation is for that except that they might have good gun laws."

Wallace challenged Pelosi, suggesting that it was obvious violent video games had malicious consequences, behind a slide of Black Ops 2 and Grand Theft Auto footage.

"We don't need another study, respectfully," Wallace said. "We know that these video games where people have their heads splattered, these movies, these TV shows – why don't you go to your friends in Hollywood and challenge them, shame them, and say, 'knock it off.'"

Pelosi stepped away from anecdotal evidence and said she wanted hard facts and evidence about violent media, as well as mental health care and assault weapons reform.

"I think we have to do it all, and that's why we included in there we have to take a look at what these games are," Pelosi said. "I don't think we should do anything anecdotally. We have a saying here, 'the plural of anecdote is not data.' So we want to know, what is the evidence, what will really make a difference here? And I think it has to be comprehensive."

Wallace and Pelosi began discussing media and gun violence at the 9:55 mark in the linked Fox News video.

Continue Reading

In the wake of a $115 million loss in Sony's third quarter, its stock price has taken a significant hit, reports Bloomberg. Shares dropped from ¥1,530 ($16.51) to ¥1,365 ($14.78), a decrease of 10.78 percent. Bloomberg notes that this is the eighth consecutive quarter that Sony has posted a loss, and that the stock price decline is the largest the company has seen since November 2008. Investors had hoped the weak Yen would help bolster the company's earnings.

The decline in stock price follows a string of troubles for Sony. Late last year, the company saw its credit rating dropped to junk status, despite its attempts to restructure in order to stem losses. It's worth noting that, while Sony did indeed post a loss for its third quarter, the loss was significantly reduced versus the same quarter in its fiscal 2011. Nevertheless, the games division saw significantly decreased sales, and the company cited the "slow penetration" of the PlayStation Vita as a "particularly important" issue.