Hasta La Gadget!

Sony Computer Entertainment has merged its Japan and Asia divisions, creating a new management unit – Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia – under SVP Hiroshi Kawano. The restructuring is part of Sony’s continued efforts to streamline its business and pare back any unnecessary expense and duplication; current SCE Asia president Hiroyuki Oda will now be deputy president of the unified Japan-Asia division, based out of the Asia headquarters.

That won’t be the only personnel change, with a shuffle of the SVPs and a number of combined positions handling business administration, development support, quality and product management, and credit management across both regions. However, other divisions will retain their specific remits: marketing, sales, customer relations and online services teams will continue to focus on either Asia or Japan.

As well as the staff shake-up, there will be a number of structural and unit changes as part of the merge. That includes a new product management unit and a new loan management unit, and there will be an Asian Network Planning Department to hunt down new business in the region.

It’s set to be an interesting few years for Sony, as the PlayStation 4 is readied for its release. The next-generation console faces not only the challenge of Microsoft’s new Xbox, but the growing relevance of casual and mobile gaming, not to mention affordable start-up challenges like OUYA snapping at its heels.

Any turnaround can’t come soon enough. Sony announced a net loss of $115m in the last financial quarter, struck particularly with poor sales of the PSP and PS Vita; the company slashed Vita pricing in an attempt to boost demand. Meanwhile, Sony Chairman Howard Stringer will retire this summer.

Sony Computer Entertainment merges Japan and Asia divisions is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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When the PlayStation 4 was announced, we’re sure a good majority of you went out the following day to your local GameStop to try to pre-order the console, even though no retailer has announced they’re officially taking pre-orders for it. But GameStop’s President revealed in an earnings call yesterday “nearly 900,000 members have already signed up for the PlayStation 4 First to Know List” which helps keep its customers informed on the upcoming console and it also serves as a pretty strong indicator of many people are considering pre-ordering it.

If the nearly 900,000 members is any indication, Bartel is already predicting demand for the PlayStation 4 will outpace GameStop’s supply. “Although we have been given no official numbers by Sony, we do believe that demand will far outpace the supply of this product during the launch window.” (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Leisure Suit Larry HD Remake Arriving This May, GTA 5 Box Art To Be Unveiled Soon?,

Fans of Battlefield 4, listen up! You know that the game will arrive on the PC platform later this fall, and will skip a release on the Nintendo Wii U, but does this mean that the game will also give the PS4 as well as upcoming Xbox successor a miss? No one really knows, as nothing has been confirmed just yet. In fact, Patrick Bach, the executive producer for the Battlefield first person shooter series at Electronic Arts’s DICE Studio, said, “I don’t know if anyone has the next-gen hardware to be honest – really. There are versions of it, but does anyone have the final hardware? Do we really know what the final hardware will be? There are specs and alpha hardware, but nobody knows exactly what it will be.”

What can one take from that rather interesting statement? Could what is known about the likes of the Sony PS4 at this point in time just be red herrings to feed the news hungry masses? After all, I am quite sure that the recent 17 minute trailer of Battlefield 4 has already garnered its fair share of fans. Ah well, like any other good rumor, only time will dispel or affirm it.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Ouya Console Arrives This June 4th, Intel PixelSync Contributes To computer Graphics History,

Many game developers will tell you that the PlayStation 3’s Cell processor was a real bear to support. What they can’t tell you: the PlayStation 4’s lead architect, Mark Cerny, was already thinking of a solution as far back as 2007. He just revealed to Gamasutra that he’d been researching x86-based processors for the PS4 merely a year after the PS3 launch, knowing that there were “some issues” with realizing the Cell’s potential. The new console’s unified memory and eight-core CPU were the ultimate results of Cerny’s talks with game creators shortly after he took the reins in 2008. We’ve already seen the shift in attitudes through a very developer-centric PlayStation Meeting, but Cerny wants to underscore just how different the PS4’s holiday launch should be versus what we remember from 2006 — even the first wave of PS4 games should benefit from a healthy toolset, he says. We’ll know his long-term planning paid off if the initial PS4 library shows the level of refinement that took years to manifest on the PS3.

Filed under: Gaming, Sony

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Via: Eurogamer

Source: Gamasutra

This year’s Battlefield series entry — Battlefield 4 — is headed to PCs this fall. The game wasn’t given other platforms, but logic dictates it’ll arrive on the PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 successor. Apparently, since only Sony’s next-gen console is a known quantity and Microsoft’s staying mum, EA isn’t sharing other platforms yet (but hey, it’s probably PlayStation 4 and the next Xbox). The game’s being built on the latest iteration of DICE’s Frostbite engine, though no other details were given about the engine just yet.

Like previous Battlefield entries, EA-owned Swedish game studio DICE is at the helm, and Battlefield 4 remains planted in current times (unlike the pseudo-future of Call of Duty‘s latest entry, Black Ops 2). A beta for the game will go live some time this fall, and folks who bought last year’s Medal of Honor: Warfighter are automatically part of said beta. We’ll have more info as EA offers it up, but color us not surprised if Battlefield 4 makes a reprise appearance at Microsoft’s still undated Xbox 360 successor unveiling.

Update: EA also released a 17-minute gameplay demo of the game’s prologue section, played on a PC. It features a squad of four soldiers on the run from Russian spec-ops militants in the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku. You’ll find it just beyond the break.

Update 2: Per a listing on EA’s digital store, Battlefield 4 is headed to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in addition to the PC. PlayStation 4 is curiously missing, as is mention of Microsoft’s next-gen game console.

Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD

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