Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve always had a soft spot for Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer, and it sounds like the old man’s doing more than cajoling Tom Hanks into telling jokes following his consolidation of power: in a lengthy and illuminating interview with Nikkei Electronics Asia, Sir Howard pledged that Sony would use more open standards in the future, saying “If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple” in the music market. That’s a pretty bold statement to be making in hindsight — especially since we’re pretty sure the Connect Player and SonicStage would have still driven people screaming into the arms of iTunes — but it’s pretty heartwarming to hear from the head of a company just as famous for an endless array of funky proprietary standards as it is the Walkman. You want to make us feel even warmer and fuzzier, Howie? “We can no longer say that we’re right and our customers are wrong. We can’t build only what we want to build.” Wow — sounds like the start of a whole new Sony. We’ll see if Sir Howard can actually pull off what sounds like a major change in his company’s culture, but for right now we’d recommend hitting the read link and taking in the whole interview, cause it’s a good one.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Sony CEO Howard Stringer on music: “If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple” originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 May 2009 13:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If various rumors are to be believed, the 2009 E3 gaming convention, happening June 2 to 4, is shaping up to be a pretty big event for Sony. First we heard recently that the company is set to unveil the long-awaited update to the PSP during the show, and now the word on the Web is that the company will also be showing off a new motion-based based controller.

The controller has been the talk of the blogs for a while now–a little over two years, in fact. Sony’s patent for the device first popped up in January 2007, and was largely regarded as the company’s attempt to compete with the runaway success of the Wii.

Sony has reportedly been actively soliciting publishers to create games that utilize the new technology. Sony, however, isn’t saying a word to the press.

Two years after we thought it was all over, it sounds like the saga of Sony, Immersion, and the rumblin’ DualShock has yet another chapter: a New Jersey electrical engineer named Craig Thorner is now suing Sony and its attorneys, claiming that he was more or less duped out of one of his patents in a shady deal designed to help Sony and PDP/Electrosource beat Immersion’s cases against them. Oh yeah, it’s a tangled mess — Thorner first signed over his patent to Immersion, hoping to score a little slice of royalty pie when the lawsuit settled, but then took it back when he decided Immersion wasn’t pursuing it hard enough and signed it over to PDP/Electrosource, who promised him $150,000. So where does Sony come in? Thorner says PDP and Sony were teamed up to beat Immersion, and that Sony was secretly the one licensing the patent but trying to remain out of the picture to keep the price down — and he’s got proof, in the form of a $150,000 wire transfer between the two companies. Not only that, but Sony’s attorneys apparently promised Thorner that they could “wear two hats” during negotiations and represent both him and Sony, which is ten kinds of shady. You can guess what happened next: Sony lost, PDP settled, and Immersion sued Thorner for breaking his agreement — and Sony’s attorneys didn’t help him defend the lawsuit. Did we say ten kinds of shady? Eleven kinds. Of course, it’s doubtful that Thorner is totally innocent here, so it’ll be interesting to see how Sony responds, but at this point we’re treating the DualShock 3 as a miracle of nature and leaving it at that.

[Via Joystiq]

Read – GamePolitics article (with PDF of the complaint)
Read – Law.com article

Filed under: Gaming

Sony sued for cheating man out of rumble patents originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the price of Wii Motion Plus bringing the cost of a full Wiimote to a whopping $80, we thought we’d reexamine the true cost of buying a console today. Which is truly the cheapest?

We’re going to pretend we’re either a family of four or an apartment that wants a system loaded up with four controllers. We’ll assume you want to be able to recharge your controllers rather than wasting money on disposable batteries, and we’ll pick the model of each console that we’d recommend to a family member asking us for advice. We’ll also factor in the cost of 2 games, because nobody buys a console without a game.

So what’s the true cost of going out and buying a system today? Let’s find out.

Playstation 3
Cost of console: $400 (80GB)
Cost of 3 extra controllers: $43 x 3 = $129
Cost of charging station: $25
Cost of 2 games: $120
Cost of HDMI cable: $3

Total: $677

Wii
Cost of console: $250
Cost of 3 extra controllers: $36 x 3 = $108
Cost of 3 Nunchuks: $18 x 3 = $54
Cost of 4 Wii Motion Pluses: $20 x 4 = $80
Cost of charging station w/ 4 rechargeable batteries: $49
Cost of 2 games: $100
SD card: $12 (8GB)

Total: $653

Xbox 360
Cost of console: $300 (60GB)
Cost of 3 extra controllers: $37 x 3 = $111
Cost of 2 rechargeable batteries: $12 x 2 = $24
Cost of recharging station w/ 2 rechargeable batteries: $30
Cost of 2 games: $120
Cost of Xbox Live membership: $43 (13 months)

Total: $628

As you can see, the prices of all three consoles are incredibly close, and you can obviously fiddle with these configurations to change them. If you only want 2 controllers and are planning to only play Wii Sports, the Wii is still the cheapest, but a fully-loaded Xbox 360 with a year of Live is actually cheaper than the fully-loaded Wii (although it’s the only console without WiFi, so add $80 if you really need that). And the PS3 is surprisingly close in price, thanks to its controllers having built-in batteries and its free online service. The Nintendo controller scheme really rockets it up in price, and it’s pretty amazing that a Wii with 4 controllers is only $24 less than a PS3 with 4 controllers.

So really, it comes down to what you want in a console. But it’s surprising to see that, in real-world prices, all three systems will set you back about the same amount, with the Xbox 360 being the cheapest of them all even when you factor in a monthly fee for online gaming.

We can’t say for sure why you’d want to use a PlayStation 3 controller with your Xbox 360, but if you somehow prefer the Batwing over something that’s actually comfortable to hold, there’s this. XCM — who just recently debuted its Rumble Joystick and KO Adapter for PlayStation 3 — is today shipping its Cross Fire Adapter for Xbox 360. As we insinuated earlier, this device enables users to connect a PS3 controller, original Xbox controller (Duke!) or wired Xbox 360 controller to one’s Xbox 360 console so you don’t have to mod your controller to enjoy the spoils of Turbo Fire. Get your order in right now over at Extreme-Mods for $84.99.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

XCM’s $84.99 Cross Fire Adapter for Xbox 360 ships today originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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