No More Backwards Compatibility For PS3

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Despite what rumors are suggesting, backwards compatibility will not be returning to the PS3 suggests John Koller, Director of Hardware at SCEA. “It’s not coming back, so let me put that on the table,” said Koller when asked about backwards compatibility. He also added that despite what people may think, backwards compatibility isn’t really that big of a draw for the PS3. “It’s not as big as a purchase intent driver as you may be hearing,” he claimed. Currently, only the early PS3 models are able to play PS2 games. The 60GB launch models have hardware emulation to play PS2 games – this hardware was removed in newer models.

Heavy Rain At GamesCom

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Meet Detective Shelby, a brand new Heavy Rain character revealed and demoed at Gamescom Cologne. David Cage, writer/director for the game and Founder/CEO of French development studio Quantic Dream, plays through the demo in the video below. Details about the plot of Heavy Rain remain scarce. Cage has stated that Heavy Rain would be “a very dark film noir thriller with mature themes”, without any supernatural elements, and that “the real message [of the game] is about how far you’re willing to go to save someone you love.

MAG Public Beta Starts On September 17th 2009

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As you may already know, the MAG Private Beta is currently taking place, and it will soon be rolling out to the public. On September 17th 2009, MAG will launch into public beta, allowing regular players to take part in huge 128-player and 256-player skirmishes online. We at XTREME PS3 are lucky enough to be taking part in the Private Beta, and let me tell you, its a very impressive game. Unfortunately, due to a NDA we cannot post up any videos or information about the game until the public beta launches.

Mark And Isabelle Discuss Plans For The Future

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Following from the Sony’s Press Conference at GamesCom, two employees from SCEE’s marketing team discuss the future of PlayStation: Isabelle Tomatis and Mark Hardy. Most of what they talk about has already been covered on this blog, but you are free to watch the video we’ve included below. According to Hardy, now is the perfect time for the price drop of the PS3, and is a small part of Sony’s plan for Christmas this year. Sony is also pushing for more digital content following from the success of the PlayStation Network. This can be seen with the announcement of the the Video Store for Europe, Digital Comic Service and the new PSP Minis range of games.

PlayStation Store Update For Aug 20th 2009

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This week on the PlayStation Store, there are a number of new demos available for you to download, including Mini Ninjas and IL-2 Sturmovik. You can also download Sony’s GamesCom Press Conference, which consists of four parts (or you can watch it online here). There is new add-on content for Zen Pinball, and new tracks for Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and a number of other additions for other titles. Check out the complete list below.

PS3 Slim Has Updated Cell Chip

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The PlayStation 3 Slim, announced on Tuesday, is not only smaller and cheaper, but adds hardware enhancements that make it speedier, including a new Cell microprocessor. Sony has made some enhancements under the hood to boost its processing speed and power efficiency. The slim PS3 carries an upgraded version of the Cell microprocessor, which was jointly developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba.

Watch Sony’s GamesCom Press Conference Online

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Did you miss Sony’s GamesCom Press Conference, or are just to lazy to read our summary? Fear not! Thanks to G4TV, we have a video of the entire conference below. The conference includes the PS3 Slim announcement, footage of Heavy Rain and Uncharted 2, and the announcement of the PSP Comic Store.

PS3 Slim Vertical Stand – Is It Really Worth It?

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If you are thinking of purchasing a PS3 Slim next month, there is something you should know. In order to use the console vertically, Sony recommends you purchase a vertical stand for the console, costing you an additional $25 / €25 on top of the price of the PS3 itself. The questions is, is it really worth it? Lucky for us, Kotaku did a quick test to see if the PS3 Slim can actually stand vertically without the stand. The answer? Watch the video below to find out.

PlayStation Home v1.3 Coming This September

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PlayStation Home will be getting a serious upgrade this fall. The main improvement will be Universal Game Launching, allowing you to launch into any game directly from within Home. Titles that fully support game launching (like Street Fighter IV, Resistance 2, MotorStorm, Far Cry 2 and Warhawk) will be identified by separate icons that appear over an avatar’s head and will have varying degrees of additional multiplayer functionality built in. Simplified game launching will take you from Home to the start menu of your favorite games with ease.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Gamescom Trailer

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In need of another Uncharted 2: Among Thieves fix? We’ve got a new trailer for you to watch – the one that was shown during Sony’s GamesCom Press Conference. The footage in the trailer is generated directly from the Naughty Dog 2.0 engine. After the trailer to there is a short interview between Naughty Dog’s Arne Meyer and PlayStation.Blog’s Chris Morell, in which they talk about the single-player campaign.