Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) have announced that they have struck a deal with six major film studios that will see downloadable HD film titles made available over the Playstation Network. The deal will see content made available for both purchase and rental.

Sony are proud to point out that their Playstation Network is the first such service available on a console that will supply content from all the major film studios. Although film content has been available for download for a while, there was little HD content available. Now with 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Warner Brothers on board to deliver content over PSN, Sony will be able offer an exhaustive list of HD titles for it's PSN users to choose from.

Towards the end of last year it was announced that Netflix would be available on the PS3, as it already was on the Xbox 360. What's unclear now though, is how this will affect Netflix on the PS3 as Sony have effectively made them selves a direct competitor with that service. Although the content available probably won't be as extensive as what Netflix have on offer, users won't need to have a paid membership or use the "instant streaming Blu-Ray disk" that is required for the Netflix service to work on the PS3. With the announcement that Sony has penned deals with all the major film studios to provide content directly though PSN, Sony could in effect remove Netflix from their platform if the service matured enough.

What's also worth considering is that Sony if they wanted to, could ship Internet ready TVs that could access the same movie content via PSN, making movie rentals and purchases extremely convenient for those that don't have a Playstation 3.

Access to to expanded list of movies will also be available to European users, including those in the UK, France and Germany, although it's not expected to be rolled out just yet.

Sony might be having problems getting Gran Turismo 5 out the door, but that doesn't stop them posting trailers for the up and coming title which we've all been waiting an age for.  The company via it's Playstation blog have released a new GT5 video/trailer targeting the games inclusion of NASCAR. The video features Polyphonic Digital's CEO Kazunori Yamauchi seemingly walking around taking snaps of all the cars as they whiz by and of the pit area it's self. It's not clear if this is research for the game or pure leisure, maybe it's a bit of both.

It will be interesting to see just how far Polyphonic Digital have gone with the inclusion of NASCAR in GT5 and whether it will actually be as good and worth while as they claim on the video. Anyway, find the video below.

Update: The issues described here have now been resolved, see the information at the bottom of the article for more details.

It would appear that users of the older "fat" PS3 are experiencing connection issues when trying to sign into the Playstation Network. Currently it seems that only the older PS3 systems are affected and that owners of the newer "slim" models have escaped the problem, at least for now.

Outages are bound to happen from time to time, but what's frustrating and annoying gamers is that they can't access their trophies, dynamic themes, multiplayer games or paid for content from the Playstation Store. Worse still and this is what's really irking gamers, is that they can't even play offline, single player games. Their systems are in effect expensive bricks for the time being.

According to Kotaku developers are also experiencing problems. Some are saying that their debuging units, those systems that are used to create PS3 titles are caught in a never ending cycling of rebooting due to an endlessly-looping error message. This means that developers are loosing valuable development time.

Sony have been forced to recognise this issue early on as it's affecting so many machines, including those of the developers who actually make content for the platform and have said via the PS blog, "We are currently working to restore service as a matter of priority and will update with further information as necessary."

Some are speculating that the sudden demise of PS3s all over the world has come about because of a problem with the PS3s internal clock. This is pure speculation at this time, but a member of the NeoGaf forums says the problem is to do with the way the PS3 is trying to jump from February to March.

According to forum member 'iammeiam', "What's apparently [gone wrong], as speculation goes, is when the internal GMT-tracking rolls over to 3/1. It's either not rolling, or rolling to 2/29, at which point a system tries to add/subtract from 2/29, which it can't do because the front-end calendar doesn't have a 2/29/2010, and [it all] explodes. Seemed to happen around 4PM PDT, which I think is 12AM GMT, so.

And the PS3 launched in 2006; it's hit 4 2/28s so far. 2007 and 2009 were odd-numbered years; 2008 was an even, and a leap year. 2010 is the first even non-leap-year the system's been around for. If some sort of base-level math is choking on itself, it may have ruled out the odd 2007 and 2009 successfully, but is convinced the even 2010 is a leap year (this part I'm less sure of, but is why leap year could theoretically come into play at some point.)"

If this is the case then the system may right it's self tomorrow as has happened to other products in the past, but for now it's probably a wise idea to avoid turning your PS3 on for today, just in case it's something worse than a calendar malfunction.

Update

Sony have released an update to the situation which confirms that it is indeed a glitch in the consoles clock. The company also confirmed that PS3 Slim models are not affected by the bug. Sony have found the following glitches (this is lifted off the PS blog):

• The date of the PS3 system may be re-set to Jan 1, 2000.
• When the user tries to sign in to the PlayStation Network, the following message appears on the screen; "An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network (8001050F)".
• When the user tries to launch a game, the following error message appears on the screen and the trophy data may disappear; "Failed to install trophies. Please exit your game."
• When the user tries to set the time and date of the system via the Internet, the following message appears on the screen; "The current date and time could not be obtained. (8001050F)"
• Users are not able to play back certain rental video downloaded from the PlayStation Store before the expiration date.

As previously suggested Sony advise all those with a pre slim model to not turn their systems on as it could prevent certain data from being restored once a fix is rolled out. Sony say they are doing their best to resolve the problem and hope it will all be sorted within the next 24 hours. They also issued an apology for the inconvenience and dare I say, distress the fault has caused to gamers.

Update - Issue Resolved

The issues that the pre Slim, Playstation 3 consoles were experiencing over the last 24 hours appear to have corrected them selves as predicted. The Playstation Blog has confirmed that the internal clock thought 2010 was a leap year and added another day to the end of February, which caused things to be out of sync with the Playstation Network. After the 29th day, which was actually March 1st the system has put its self right again.

If your clock is still wrong you can change it manually and Sony say it is safe to turn your systems back on and get back in the game, everything should work and sync up as normal form now it. Although the Slim models were not caught up in the problem, those systems have not yet experienced a leap year, "does a problem lay dormant in their systems?" is a question that some might be asking after recent events. In any case, Sony are aware of the problem with the 'fat' systems and can work to push an update out for the 'Slim' systems, should they require it.

According to the BBC an American hacker by the name of George Hotz has hacked the PS3. He claims to have opened the PS3 up to such an extent that homebrew software, PS2 emulation and also pirated games could be run on the system.

George Hotz has previously been responsible for hacking the iPhone and opening it up to other networks. He says he has been working on and off at cracking the golden nugget that is the PS3. Since the summer of 2009 he has spent about five weeks analysing and then working his way around the PS3's security.

Until now the PS3 has been the only seventh generation console to not surcome to some form of hacking which has earned it the reputation of being almost unhackable. On Jan 22nd however Hotz updated his Twitter page and simply tweeted "fine, one tweet... i just hacked the PS3".

He describes the PS3 as a "very secure" system but  that "nothing is uncrackable". Hotz method of breaking the PS3 involves using hardware to present a system of insecurity and to then build on that foundation with software. He says that the hack is about 5 percent hardware, 95 percent software. He is still working on refining the hack but once he does, he says he will publish the details of how to do it online.

He does admit that he has not yet been able to hack the entire system yet, but even with the hack has achieved he can still trick the PS3 into doing things it shouldn't be doing.

When asked about running pirating games, Hotz distanced him self from the idea and said "I'm not going to personally have anything to do with that". This news though should deeply concern Sony because until now they have not had to worry about counterfeit material running on their system. Unlike Microsoft and Nintendo who have both suffered security breaches with their systems'. Sony are said to be investigating the reports and will clarify the information when they find out more.

Source: BBC

Yes that's right, the eagerly awaited hit racing title for the Playstation platform has once again had it's released date pushed back. Towards the end of 2009 Sony and Polyphony Digital set a March 2010 release date for Japan. The game would later be released worldwide at a date that was had not yet been set. Now however, Sony have confirmed to Reuters that because of production issues they have had push the release date back yet again. This comes as a surprise after GT5: Prologue seemed to indicate that the game was coming together nicely.

GT5 has been delayed on several occasions now and there doesn't appear to be any sign of it coming out soon. After announcing this latest round of bad news Sony said that they could not give a definitive release date. It seems the game has been in development for an age now after it was announced at E3 back in 2006. Although not quite as bad, the situation with GT5 coming out is looking more and more like a Duke Nukem Forever scenario; always promised but never delivered.

GT5 if it ever gets released, will have around 1000 playable cars, crash damage, 20 different locations with 70 tracks. The game has so far cost around $60,000,0000 to make. In the mean time Turn 10, developer for the Forza Motorsport series on the Xbox 360 have managed to release two hit titles in Forza 2 and Forza 3 since 2005. 

Source: Bit-tech.net via Reuters.com

Gran Turismo 5, the much anticipated game from Polyphony Digital for the PS3 will be released in Japan in March 2010. However in an interview with autoweek.com, Gran Turismo, creator Kazunori Yamauchi has said that a launch date for the rest of the world has not yet been set. When asked about GT5's release date he simply replied with: "We will release it in March in Japan but for other regions, it has not been decided yet."

Naturally autoweek followed with with "What's holding it up?" to which Mr Yamacuchi replied with, "That's more depending on SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment America) marketing decisions." followed by "My job is to create the product, not sell it." after being asked if he had spoken to Sony about the issue. It seems a little odd that Sony and PD cannot get a date set for one of the most eagerly anticipated games for their PS3 platform. After all it has been in development now for four or five years.

He went on to confirm that the game would have around 1000 cars, including an F1 Ferarri, LeMans and some NASCAR vehicles too. He also confirmed that the demo will include crash damage and that all the cars will be on the game's disk. The biggest news through is that he confirmed that there will be a GT6 and that gamers won't have to wait so long for GT6 as they have done for GT5.

To read the full interview, head over to  autoweek.com

Source: Kotaku.com

If rumours the are to be believed then GT5 which has been in development since 2005, will feature a track editor. If true this gives it quite a nifty feature that it's Xbox 360 counterpart, Forza 3 lacks.

According to E4G an email they sent to Polyphony Digital (GT5's developer) enquiring about GT5 having a track editor met the following response, "Yes it will have a track editor. You will be able to rebuild a track from scratch or edit the tracks that are already put in Gran Turismo 5".

Despite this however, Sony themselves would not confirm any such feature and remain mute on the subject. When asked they told Eurogamer, "We haven't confirmed this and aren't offering any other comment at this time".

It remains to be seen if Sony have plans to announce this feature, but given their response to the subject they haven't actually denied that GT5 will have a track editor. As far as a release date for the ever elusive GT5, Polyphony Digital simply said that they couldn't give out that information at this time.

Source: bit-tech.net

Sony and Netflix have announced that a deal has been struck, that will see thousands of movies and TV episodes streamed to the PS3 in either SD or HD. Microsoft and Netflix struck a deal last November to offer the service on the Xbox 360, a year down the road and Sony are getting in on the act too.

The press release stated that current Netflix subscribers will have free access to the service when it launches next month, while those who are not currently subscribed to Netflix can signup to the service for $8.99 per month.

In order to use or at the very least, activate the service, you will have to make use of the blu-ray disk drive that comes with every PS3. Netflix will be offering a free "instant steaming Blu-ray disk" that will make use of Blu-ray's BD-Live technology to connect to a Netflix interface via the Internet and from there stream content to the PS3. If you are a Netflix member and are interested in this service you can go to www.netflix.com/ps3  and reserve your free streaming disk. The press release was not clear if this disk had to be used each time you wanted to access the service or if it is just a one-time use for activation.

What's a little ironic about this is that Sony in co-operation with the rest of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) spent billions on Blu-Ray's development and now the PS3 will have access to a service which in effect goes behind the back of Blu-ray to provide streaming, downloadable content.

In its first three weeks, Sony managed to shift 1 million units of its newly revamped PlayStation 3 console. Sales were reportedly up 1000 percent in the UK at the time of it's launch.

The new PS3 Slim features a 32 percent smaller chassis over its original design and a reduction in power by some 34 percent thanks in part to the smaller 45nm Cell processor being used. Another noticeable feature was it's 120GB hard drive for storing all your downloaded PSN content and saved game files.

Yesterday Sony announced through it's official PlayStation 3 blog, that it had registered more than 600 million downloads from the PlayStation Network and it feels that with everyone downloading so much content they should offer yet another SKU, despite only launching the Slim at the start of September.

This time around the PS3 Slim will boast a 250GB hard drive and will cost $50 more than the original slim version putting it in at $349.99. Sony say the new model will be released on November 3rd but it would appear that the UK has had it first as retailers are already selling the new model for around £270 which marks a £20 to £30 increase over the 120GB model. 

New 250GB PS3 Slim Packaging - Image copyright Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc