Hasta La Gadget!

It’s time to get realistic about the prospects of a PlayStation Vita price drop. Sony Worldwide Studios’ head Shuhei Yoshida dampened the fires of speculation at GamesCom this week by telling Eurogamer that it was simply “too early” to slash the price on the gaming handheld — it was only just launched this year for every active region beyond Japan, after all. That’s not to say Sony is determined to keep the PS Vita at $249 forever. Much like what it did for the PS3, the company is working to bring down the price by streamlining part costs. The cuts might be necessary given the mismatch between the warm reception to the quad-core, OLED-packing hardware and the actual sales; Sony would “like to see more uptake” than what’s been seen to date, according to Yoshida. In the meantime, we’ll have to be content with bundles like the European LittleBigPlanet combo if we want to eke out a little more value at the game store counter.

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Sony rules out PS Vita price cut in 2012, works to lower the price later originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s decided that you’ve been playing so much with their dedicated online service, you deserve more space for your cloud saves. From next month, users will see their cloud storage increase from 150MB to 1GB. We were also teased that the PlayStation Vita would be getting into PlayStation Plus soon, but it looks like SCEE CEO Jim Ryan is holding onto that tantalizing nugget for now. Hopefully we’ll hear more on this a bit later.

Filed under: Gaming

PlayStation Plus coming to the PS Vita this year, cloud storage increasing from 150MB to 1GB ‘from September’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s handheld will get its own companion bundle for its incoming (and exclusive) Call of Duty title. The set will include the game, a PlayStation Vita and a carry pouch — camouflage pattern TBC. Unfortunately, Sony it neglected to mention a price or a date — though it’s likely to arrive around the same time as the game, later this year.

Continue reading PlayStation Vita Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified bundle announced, pricing MIA

Filed under: Gaming

PlayStation Vita Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified bundle announced, pricing MIA originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Aug 2012 13:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to Engadget’s back to school guide! The end of summer vacation isn’t nearly as much fun as the weeks that come before, but a chance to update your tech tools likely helps to ease the pain. Today, we’re getting our game on — and you can head to the back to school hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of the month we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — and hit up the hub page right here!

It’s time to balance out that daily grind at school with some well-deserved leisure. Fortunately, many of our choices walk that fine line between work and play — if you’re willing to stump up some more cash beyond a normal laptop, you could get something capable of handling the latest PC titles. Some of our other choices may be a harder sell in the education stakes, but we all need some stress relief, right? And with bigger consoles nearing the end of their life cycles, there’s never been a more wallet-friendly time to get involved. Jump in after the break for our favorite gaming choices. If all your money’s been earmarked for learnin’, then you should certainly enter our sweepstakes. Leave a comment after the break for a chance to win, and visit our giveaway page for all the details.

Continue reading Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: gaming

Filed under: Gaming

Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: gaming originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Aug 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s first-quarter figures for 2012 show that despite the company’s optimism three months ago, it’s made a net loss of $312 million. It pulled in a whopping $19.2 billion in sales for the three months ending June 30th, partly credited to bringing Sony Mobile fully into the family. However, the cost of restructuring the Mobile Products and Communications Division (of which Sony Mobile is a part) came to $143 million, wiping out the additional gains to record a loss of $356 million. Gaming-wise, the PlayStation maker suffered a $45 million loss as falling sales of the PSP and PS3 were only partially offset by the sales of the PS Vita. There was better news in its imaging division, while sales of compact cameras fell, DSLRs and “Professional” products took up the slack, resulting in a profit of $160 million.

In a trend we’ve seen across the Home Entertainment industry, sales of LCD televisions continued to fall, forcing the company to eat a loss of $126 million. Movie and TV recorded a loss of $62 million, although that’s primarily due to a dip in advertising sales in India and the cost of marketing (but not producing) The Amazing Spider-Man, the profits of which won’t be recognized until September. Finally, while it spent big to purchase EMI this quarter, big-ticket albums like Usher’s Looking 4 Myself and One Direction’s Up All Night helped the division make a profit of $92 million. While Sony’s treading water to execute Kaz Hirai’s “One” Strategy, it’s still got $8.4 billion stashed under the mattress, and in the face of lower sales, is hoping that reduced costs will help it make $1.6 billion in profit by the end of March 2013.

Filed under: Cellphones, Desktops, Digital Cameras, Gaming, Home Entertainment, Tablet PCs

Sony releases Q1 2012 financial results, eats $312 million loss originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Aug 2012 02:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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