Helping Sega pioneer disc-based gaming, the original PlayStation went on to sell over 100 million consoles until it was discontinued in 2006. Check out the official birthday site for PlayStation here for a trip down memory lane—when PlayStations were much smaller and lighter than they are today, and didn't need to install patches every 20 minutes. [PlayStation via Kotaku]

Remember, technically PlayStation Home is only an open beta. So if it kinda blows, melts your PS3 or sucks your physical body in to a Tron-like world of horror, it's not Sony's fault. You downloaded it. Oh, and apparently you can buy clothes for your avatar from Diesel. Yes, your fake you will dress better than your real you. Full details:

PLAYSTATION®HOME BETA SERVICE WILL BECOME AVAILABLE TO ALL PLAYSTATION®3 USERS ON DECEMBER 11
Highly Anticipated Service Open For All PLAYSTATION 3 Users

Tokyo, Foster City, London, December 10, 2008 – Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced that its highly anticipated PlayStation®Home Beta service for PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) will become available for all PS3 users around the world *1 on December 11, 2008. Following the successful completion of the closed beta service, PlayStation Home’s open beta service will continue to evolve with new features and functionality.

PlayStation Home is a ground-breaking 3D social gaming community available on PS3 that allows users to interact, communicate and share gaming experiences. By leveraging the power of PS3, PlayStation Home delivers overwhelming visual graphics and rich gaming social experiences only possible on the PS3 platform. Within PlayStation Home, users can create and customize their own unique avatars and explore the virtual community in real time where they can communicate freely through text or voice chat. PlayStation Home users will not only be able to enjoy variety of entertainment content such as mini-games, videos and special events along with their friends, but will also be able to create their own community by using the “Club*2” feature to create clubs with other PlayStation Home users who share the same interests. PlayStation Home also allows groups of users to launch directly into their favourite online games together from PlayStation Home.

PlayStation Home, available as a free download*3 starting December 11, will launch directly from the PlayStation Home icon on the PlayStation®Network column of XMB™ (XrossMediaBar) on PS3. Users will be able to experience basic features and services of PlayStation Home, free of charge*4. PlayStation Home will allow open interaction among users, business partners, and SCE, and will evolve with additional features including dedicated game spaces, special events and exclusive themed items, to further enrich the entertainment experience on the PS3 platform.

“PlayStation Home is truly a promising network community service on the PlayStation platform, made possible with the powerful combination of PS3's overwhelming computational power and PlayStation Network that covers many countries around the globe,” said Kazuo Hirai, President and Group CEO, SCE. “We are committed to providing PS3 users with exciting gaming experiences with PlayStation Home and together with our partners and users, expand the new world of interactive entertainment as we move forward.”

For users accessing PlayStation Home in the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) regions, themed virtual environments will be available to explore. Starting with a themed Far Cry 2 space, PlayStation Home will offer game inspired environments that allow people to discuss the specific games, plan strategies and access content and clues that will enhance the gaming experience. The number of gaming environments such as this will regularly increase, with spaces for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune™, Warhawk™, Motorstorm and SOCOM following very soon. SCEE is working with leading publishers such as: Electronic Arts, UBISOFT, Midway, Sega and Atari to create engaging environments that will provide users with an on-going gaming experience.

“We are very excited to be bringing PlayStation Home to Europe and the PAL territories, offering users an interactive, social, gaming experience,” said Daniel Hill, Home Service Manager, SCEE. “PlayStation Home is unique to anything else in the gaming world and by partnering with both global and regional gaming and non-gaming brands, we are able to offer exciting and entertaining content that will enhance the PlayStation experience.”

SCEE today also announced the first partnerships with some of the world’s most respected lifestyle brands for the Open Beta. Fashion leader Diesel, contemporary furniture designers Ligne Roset, energy drink Red Bull, film studio Paramount Pictures and video content providers Hexus TV and Eurogamer are the first on board. They will offer resident’s virtual clothing for their avatar, virtual furniture for their PlayStation Home apartments, exclusive video content and a virtual flying challenge: the Red Bull Air Race.

Visitors and residents will be able to explore PlayStation Home with their avatar character and, thanks to Diesel, avatars can look great from the start with Diesel offering the latest men’s and women’s designer avatar clothing, with items ranging from free of charge to €1.50. So for those visiting PlayStation Home, they can dress their avatars in the latest jeans and jacket prior to getting out and about.

On the home front, PlayStation®Home gives everyone their own apartment to spend time in and entertain friends - who will now be able relax on exclusive Ligne Roset furniture. At the virtual store, people will be able to choose from a selection of the most popular Ligne Roset designs, including the iconic Togo and Facett upholstery collections. It will be possible to personalise furniture by selecting from a wide selection of fabrics and leathers allowing a unique and individual look. This is an opportunity to get acquainted with Ligne Roset’s cutting edge designs created by some of Europe’s most talented designers.

As the very first consumer brand space, Red Bull has created the Red Bull Island where visitors to the Island can interact and take part in many of Red Bull’s unique events. Initially there will be the opportunity to get inside the cockpit of a Red Bull Air Race plane and compete against the PlayStation community. The real-world Red Bull Air Race World Championship has become a global phenomenon in just four years, attracting millions of spectators. Now those spectators can leave the stands, become a pilot and tackle the Red Bull Island course themselves. The Red Bull Island will continue to expand, adding new and exciting content in early 2009.

Taking full advantage of the PlayStation Home Theatre, SCEE has partnered with various content providers to enhance the cinematic experience. Offering a wide range of content, the PlayStation Home Theatre will provide lifestyle technology programming from Hexus TV, gaming content from Eurogamer and exclusive film content from Paramount Pictures. Starting with the release of the highly anticipated film, Watchmen, Paramount Pictures International will use PlayStation®Home to promote its latest films. Initially, PlayStation®Home residents will be able to view an exclusive video greeting from Watchmen Director Zack Snyder as well as the latest Watchmen trailer. A selection of virtual Watchmen merchandise e.g. T-Shirts with the smiley face logo, Doomsday clocks and character statues, will also be available in the New Year, ahead of an exclusive Q & A event where cast and filmmakers will meet selected press and competition winners fans within the Watchmen themed environment.

PlayStation Home is exclusive to PS3, free to download and easy to join. It’s the ultimate online community – a place where you can meet friends, try the latest games, hear new music, watch videos, relax in the apartment of your dreams and much, much more. With more and more spaces being created and partners like Diesel, Ligne Roset and Red Bull coming on board, the PlayStation Home experience is just getting started.

SCE will vigorously promote the expansion of the world of PS3 by introducing new services that will open up new possibilities and enjoyment in interactive entertainment.

*1 PlayStation Home will not be available in some regions.

*2 To be a “Clubhouse” owner, user will need to buy the entitlement to run the club.

*3 When the service is available, PlayStation Home icon will appear after booting/ re-booting the PS3 system. To enjoy PlayStation Home, users will need broadband network connection and PlayStation Network account in addition to the PS3 system.

*4 Some content and services are charged.

[Kotaku]

To try Home, which is slated for release in the next 10 days, players must download a piece of free software from Sony’s PlayStation store onto their own PS3.

Just keep in mind that even if Times Online has the scoop, they're a UK publication who may not be speaking for a worldwide release date.

Then again, December 17th up with Sony's own assurances quite nicely...even if it's all a bit too late for pre-Christmas hype. [Times Online via Kotaku]

Life With PlayStation(R) Comes to PLAYSTATION(R)3 on September 18, Worldwide

Proposing a New Life Style with PLAYSTATION 3

TOKYO, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) today announced that it would release Life with PlayStation(R) for PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(R)) today, September 18, 2008, worldwide simultaneously. Life with PlayStation is a new lifestyle service that offers users a new visual and interactive way to use their PS3 to access news and information from around the world, only possible on the PS3's feature-rich platform.
As the initial content, LIVE CHANNEL will be released for Life with PlayStation. Through network connected PS3, it delivers worldwide news and information centering on two themes, "place" and "time" on a world map interface. Some of the live content includes; cloud imagery (provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center), along with weather information (provided by The Weather Channel), news headlines (provided by Google News(TM)), and live camera images (partially provided by The Earth Television Network) of nearly 60 cities around the globe. Through LIVE CHANNEL, PS3 users will be able to enjoy worldwide news and live information free of charge. In addition to LIVE CHANNEL, Life with PlayStation will continually deliver a wide variety of interactive content and channels to living rooms through network connected PS3s to further enhance the world of entertainment made possible by PS3.
PS3 users can easily join Life with PlayStation by simply clicking the Folding@home*1 icon on the network column of XMB(TM) (XrossMediaBar) that will update to Life with PlayStation.
With the latest update, Folding@home will support more advanced simulation of protein fold, and will also support PS3's unique Folding@home ranking system, which enables users to see where they stand among the worldwide contributors based on their level of contribution. SCE will vigorously promote the expansion of the world of PS3 by introducing new services that will open up new possibilities and enjoyment in interactive entertainment.

*1 Folding@home is a distributed computing*2 project run by Stanford University which aims to understand protein folding and misfolding, and how these are related to diseases and many forms of cancer. PS3 provides approximately 74% (as of February 2008) of the computing power in Folding@home and over 1 million PS3 users has participated in this project.

*2 Distributed computing is an approach adopted by universities and research laboratories to utilize immense computing power without the use of central supercomputers. Small computing tasks are assigned to each user's computer and the results are collected after computation is complete.

* For more information, please see the official website (http://www.playstation.com/life/).

About Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
Recognized as the global leader and the company responsible for the progression of consumer-based computer entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) manufacturers, distributes and markets the PlayStation(R) game console, the PlayStation(R)2 computer entertainment system, the PSP(R) (PlayStation(R)Portable) handheld entertainment system and the PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(R)) system. PlayStation has revolutionized home entertainment by introducing advanced 3D graphic processing, and PlayStation 2 further enhances the PlayStation legacy as the core of home networked entertainment. PSP is an innovative handheld entertainment system that allows users to enjoy 3D games, with high-quality full-motion video, and
high-fidelity stereo audio. PS3 is an advanced computer system, incorporating the state-of-the-art Cell processor with super computer level processing power. SCEI, along with its subsidiary divisions Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Ltd., and Sony Computer Entertainment Korea Inc. develops, publishes, markets and distributes software, and manages third party licensing programs for these platforms in the respective markets worldwide. Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. is an independent business unit of the Sony Group.

PlayStation, PLAYSTATION, PS3 and the PlayStation logo are registered trademarks of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. XMB is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

As everyone knows, Sony is a hardware company. But when making the PlayStation(s), they've become a software company as well. The problem came from the fact that they didn't know whether they're a software company or a hardware company or even both, which influenced the way the PS3 was developed. In this case, the hardware guys developed the console fairly independently then dumped it onto the software guy's lap, effectively saying "do something with it." In essence, as Tretton says, the PS3 was not developed in collaboration between the two teams. As a result of this, the software team has been cleaning up the mess made by the hardware team for years.

This is one of the biggest problems with Sony as a whole. Their UI designs are not as good as they could be because much of the company still sees themselves as a hardware force first and a software firm second. Hopefully with previous boss Ken Kutaragi out and guys like Kaz Hirai and Jack Tretton influencing development on the sure-to-be-upcoming PlayStation 4, things will be better in the next generation.

When the parcel arrived, on March 20, the boy's parents contacted the Norfolk Constabulary, who are now holding the money under the Proceeds of Crime Act. If the owner does not come forward by September 22, then the family can apply to have the cash returned to them—unless the police apply to hold onto the money for a longer period. [BBC]

A new PLAYSTATION 3 model (CECHE01) with an 80GB hard disk was listed as an additional inclusion to the original FCC grant. The two current model numbers CECHA01 and CECHB01 specify the 60GB and 20GB versions, respectively.

Jump for the FCC doc.

–Brian Lam

Sony Working on PS3 Elite Model? [Kotaku]

On average, between the superfast and superslow PCs, 159,033 PCs are only doing about half that much. (151 TFLOPS). Essentially, 13,000 PS3s have just made the Folding at Home Project the fastest distributed computing project on the planet, ever. (I believe it used to be SETI @ Home, which was something like 280 TFLOPS.) This also means the PS3 met Stanford professor Vijay Pande's expected one-month goal in one day. (We'll update this post with confirmation once Dr. Pande gets back to us.)

The project just needs about 18,000 more PS3s participating to make the Folding at Home project the first distributed computing project to hit a Petaflop. To put that into perspective, the Japanese MDGRAPE-3, RIKEN's supercomputer, has about a Petaflop of computing power.

And the potential goes on from there. There are 2 million PS3s in the wild, and over 100 million PS2s shipped thus far. PS3 owners, what are you waiting for? Get the word out to other PS3 owners. Let's help cure Alzheimer's disease. –Brian Lam

P.S. I'm sure there are CS majors out there who can fact-check this post. Post your updates in the comments.

Folding at Home Stats by OS [Stanford]
PS3 Folding [Gizmodo]

At midnight Spain, a major Sony stronghold, they were giving away half-price consoles but this morning retailers were reporting that the 600€ PS3s were not exactly flying off the shelves. An informal poll in El Corte Ingles, Spain's biggest retail chain, showed that there were still enough consoles to last until at least next week. Video of le bâteau in Paris and more European indifference/desperation after the jump.

The night before the Mayor of Madrid (he's the one looking at the la-las of the lady on his left in the picture below) was up way past his bedtime to present a cute tweenager with her first console courtesy of Banesto bank. They were selling PS3 at half the price to tout for new business (to get that offer you had to tell your employer to transfer your salary to your Banesto bank account for a minimum of 25 months). T-shirts with "My mom had her paycheck paid into Banesto and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" "I've got Playstation 3" emblazoned on the front and baseball caps were also doled out.

In Berlin, german gamers were treated to a free gig, courtesy of those nice people at Sony (thankfully, no David Hasselhoff). Italy got its consoles two days before everyone else, after retailers Darty announced that their PS3s were going on sale on Wednesday morning. Ooh, those Italians can't half be rebellious when they want to. – Ad Dugdale

PS3 Launch Leave Parisians Cold [Next Generation]

From what I recall, NY PS3 launch attendees got rain, and maybe a PS3. In SF, we got shit...and maybe a PS3. At the unofficial lines at Best Buy, you sometimes got mugged, or shot.

For the record, the TV was some 46-inch HDTV. I'll guess LCD. All in all, Sony Entertainment UK gave out £250,000 in TVs at the London event. And they got rides home. –Brian Lam

London PS3 Launch Gives Out TVs to All [Kotaku]

I'd done a little math, maybe faulty, maybe not, on how powerful the PS3 is compared is to the average PC on Folding @ Home. We'll have to see how long the first work units take to process, and check the stats later. Right now, PS3 says it's going to take about 8 hours to get done.

It would be neat if PS3 found the cure for Alzheimer's. Even the vicious anti-Sony bloggers can't spin that one wrong. –Brian Lam

PS3 Folding [Gizmodo]

Release after the jump.

FOSTER CITY, Calif., March 20 /PRNewswire/ — Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) today announced that the next regular system software update for the PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3(TM)) computer entertainment system (version 1.60) will be available March 22, delivering features such as Folding@home connectivity, enhanced downloading of content from the PLAYSTATION(R)Store, support for Bluetooth(R) keyboards and mice, and an optional full QWERTYon-screen keyboard for text entry.

Folding@home
Beginning Thursday, PS3 users will be able to connect to Stanford University's Folding@home program, a distributed computing project aimed at understanding protein folding, misfolding, and related diseases, such as
Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and many cancers. Using the power of the Cell Broadband Engine(TM), the PS3 system can perform computer simulations for the Folding@home program 20-30 times faster than the average home PC. Once a PS3 system is updated to version 1.60, users can easily sign up to join the
Folding@home program by clicking on the associated logo on the XMB(TM) (XrossMediaBar) under the Network icon. The user is then able to link to a distributed network of PS3s, conducting simulations and sending them back to a central computer at Stanford University for compilation and analysis.

Enhanced Downloading
Firmware version 1.60 delivers a more convenient process for downloading content to the PS3 from the PLAYSTATION Store. PS3 users will now be able to queue up to six downloads at one time. Progress of downloads can be easily tracked under a new Download Management menu under the XMB's Network icon. In
addition, content will be able to be downloaded in the background while using some PS3 system features, such as accessing the XMB to display videos and photos from the system's hard drive, playing music, and browsing the Web.

Text Entry and Web Browsing
Firmware 1.60 also will support keyboards and mice enabled with Bluetooth wireless technology. Text entry is further expanded with the option to use a full QWERTY on-screen keyboard, in addition to the existing single tap keyboard. PS3 system's built-in Web browser will also be enhanced with the ability to zoom in to the optimal viewing size for the selected area of a Web page at the press of a button, as well as an optional tool for reducing flicker when the PS3 system is using interlaced video out (480i or 1080i).

Other Feature Upgrades

* Remote Play — This feature, enabling you to access photos, videos, and music on your PS3 system's hard drive from a nearby PSP(R)(PlayStation(R)Portable) system, will be available for the 20GB configuration, when utilizing an external Wi-Fi router or local wireless access point.
* Disc Auto-Start — This new option under System Settings allows you to choose whether or not a disc should start automatically upon inserting the disc or turning on your PS3 system.
* Blu-ray Disc Rewriteable (BD-RE) — PS3 system can now playback BD-RE discs (version 3.0).

"PS3 is constantly evolving with new features that keep the system at the cutting edge, thus unlocking its full potential," said Peter Dille, senior vice president of marketing, SCEA. "This upcoming firmware update not only delivers capabilities that gamers are asking for, such as enhanced downloading, it also enables us to tap into the PS3 community for the Folding@home project, leveraging the power of PS3's technology and theever-expanding reach of our user base to help researchers find cures for diseases."
To install the latest system software on your PS3 system, you can select the System Update feature when your system is hooked up the Internet; use a PC to download the update data and transfer it to the PS3 system through storage media or a USB mass storage device; or install it using update data included on an upcoming game disc.

[Kotaku]

•A Sony poll inquired if he'd be interested in an HD Eyetoy Camera. To which he replied, "HuhWhatsItOKyesSure?!" (See photo) The odds: 3/10. Marketing guys always label everything HD. It's what they do.

•Rumors that the PS3's Bluetooth remote is showing up in stores. Which may be a comfortable thing to sleep next to if you're still waiting for your preorder or can't dream of affording more than a PS3 clicker. –Brian Lam

Eyetoy HD? [Kotaku]
Bluray remotes in the wild [Kotaku]

The buyer wanted to see what was in the box, but the seller "balked" and asked "What, don't you trust me?" The non-retarded answer would have been "no", but the two swapped anyway. After the cash exchanged hands, the sellers ran off to their SUV and sped through a red light, and the buyer discovered he was holding a PS3 box with some magazines, floor tiles, and a PS2 controller.

Lessons learned: don't hold Craigslist deals at McDonalds, and always see the merchandise first. Especially when someone pulls the "what, you don't trust me?" – Jason Chen

San Jose man victim of PlayStation scam [Mercury News via Kotaku]

•Lots of PS3 games run at 720p, natively.

•Lots of pre-2003/2004 era HDTVs don't do both 720p and 1080i, just one or the other.

•When a PS3 is connected to one of these legacy TVs that doesn't support 720p, the 720p games get dropped to a droopy 480p, instead of the happier 1080i res.

•Sony is working on a fix.

The Xbox acts differently:

•Xbox 360 does not do this; it runs everything at whatever setting you declare in the system menu.

Granted, tons of older HDTVs have this problem. But maybe you early adopters should use this as an excuse to upgrade to a nice flat panel. Use one of our black friday deals. Go ahead, you deserve it. –Brian Lam

Also, the PS3 becomes unusable in any other form while its in Remote Play mode. And...

In remote play, the PS3 becomes an access point, and the PSP needs to hook up to it Ad Hoc. At least that's how it went for us. Mainly, because the PS3 wouldn't let us set up an AP that was WEP, it wanted to go to WAP on our G network. Anyhow, its fine: the PS3 remained connected to our main internet access point while this was going on.

Also, the PSP isn't doing any sort of PS3 interface in emulation. It's actually streaming a video of the PS3 interface over WiFi. Like the LocationFree TV. In fact, its probably using the same code, since the PSP has the LocationFree client built in. –Brian Lam

All Things PS3 [Gizmodo]

Their laundry list of complaints include the fact that you need to plug the controller in before using it wirelessly, no HD cables included in the box, not being able to download content in the background while you play, not being able to play your own music over games, and so on and so forth. They go on to say that Sony has "forgotten that all the transistors in the world can't make someone smile." Ouch.

The author, one Seth Schiesel, seems about ready to go crawling back to his beloved Xbox 360 and never look back, but we think he might be being a bit hasty with his damning judgment. The PS3 might have some annoying bugs in its software, but in a few months once some updates have come down the pipe we're sure a lot of these little nitpicks will be made moot. Let's give it a chance here, Seth. It's not like the Xbox 360 hasn't gotten upgrades since it came out. –Adam Frucci

A Weekend Full of Quality Time With PlayStation 3 [New York Times]