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65nm Xbox 360 seen in the wild
WE'VE HAD another glut of announcements from Sony this week, as the company attempts to take the sheen of the hugely successful Halo 3 launch.
PS3/PSP
A new PS3 SKU was announced this week, containing a 40GB hard-drive.
The 40GB version lacks backwards compatibility, contains only 2 USB ports and also lacks the multi-memory card interface the top-of-the-range SKU contains.
Considering SCEE PS3s have backwards compatibility implemented by software, this seems a strange choice.
The 40GB SKU will retail at £299.
Even more interestingly, the 60GB Value pack will also drop in price, to £349, which comes bundled with two games.
The repositioned prices will come into effect on 10th October in SCEE territories.
Eurogamer reports that Sony has sold 580,000 units of the new PlayStation Portable in Japan.
That includes the 77,777 special edition units made to celebrate the launch of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, which launched a week in advance of the standalone unit's debut.
As previously reported, the new unit, known as PSP Slim, marched past the 300,000 unit total in just a handful of days.
Joystiq has a hands on with the eagerly awaited Playstation Eye for the PS3, which looks to be shaping up a lot better than Microsoft's Xbox 360 offering.
Wii/DS
Although Sony is announcing all sorts of news, it isn't slowing the domination
of the Wii in the far east.
According to reports that looked at movement from April through September, the Wii outsold the PlayStation 3 "by more than four to one in Japan." reports Reuters.
That dominance is enforced by DS sales figures - Nintendo announced that the company has sold 50 million DS' - and Engadget has posted a nice cake to celebrate.
All of this success has hit Nintendo's share price - shares in Nintendo hit an all-time high of JPY 64,800 before closing up 2.7 per cent, on Wednesday, following Goldman Sachs giving the company a 'buy' rating, reports Gamesindustry.biz.
Goldman Sachs compared Nintendo's success in new markets to that of Apple, suggesting that both companies had managed to knock rival Sony off its top spots in both the portable music and home console markets.
Nintendo's bottom line might be even better, if it wasn't for the continuing Wii shortage. Though the company announced only a couple of weeks ago that the shortages would stop in time for the upcoming holiday season, Reggie from Nintendo of America has this to say about the upcoming shopping maelstrom:
"We're working very hard to make sure that consumers are satisfied this holiday, but I can't guarantee that we're going to meet demand. As a matter of fact, I can tell you on the record that we won't."
If only Bungie would release Halo for the DS, the console would surely reign king for all time. Matt at IGN has allegedly posted proof of the game, here.
If static shots aren't proof enough, Matt has a video of him playing it. Considering his music taste, we believe him.
Another video of interest is the opening cinematic from Super Mario Galaxy - here. God, we can't wait.
Here's the usual Eurogamer Virtual Console round-up.
Xbox 360
Xbox-scene.com
forum posters believe they have spotted a 65nm CPU Xbox 360 in the wild - but
without the use of the upcoming Falcon motherboard.
"The motherboard looks (almost) identical to the Zephyr, so I doubt it's the Falcon already. If the CPU is 65nm or not is hard to say ... it seems to be a bit different to those in the Pro-hdmi or Elite anyway. The smaller package, the lower power usage and missing 'power converters' on the right side of the board seems to indicate we indeed have a 65nm CPU here." read the posting.
No official word on whether Microsoft is indeed manufacturing 65nm components yet, but it's a strong possibility.
It seems the Xbox 360 Arcade SKU rumour is resurfacing, this time courtesy of shots from both Amazon and Toys R Us sites.
Amazon has updated its listings stating the Arcade is scheduled for release on October 23th, 2007, with a price of $279.99. Toys R Us states the 25th. Pics here. µ
Tags: Microsoft
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Sorry Mike, but Steve is correct. The 'compatibility chip' you mention only refers to the Emotion Engine. The Graphics Synthesiser from the PS2 has been fitted on ALL models of PS3, until now. That is the reason that backwards compatibility is now gone.
Thanks Graham. Mike and Van, don't try to correct someone when you don't know what you are talking about. Direct from SONY:

"The 60GB model launched in Europe was a new model (shared with the 80GB model launched subsequently in USA) which contains only a modified version of the Graphics Synthesiser chip from the PS2 and not the Emotion Engine chip. The European launch model therefore used a combination of software and the modified version of the PS2 Graphics Synthesiser chip to deliver backwards compatibility for PS2 titles.

The 40GB model, to be launched in Europe on 10th October, is a new model and is not equipped with any of the semi conductors from the PS2, and backwards compatibility would therefore have to be achieved by software emulation alone."

More confirmation:

http://www.threespeech.com/blog/?p=293
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/news/151
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2007/0314/kaigai344.htm

GS was STILL in the PAL 60GB and NTSC 80GB. Enough said. :)
*quote* "Umm, the PAL 60GB and 80GB PS3s still have the PS2 GPU in there, so it's not all software." *quote*

That is not true Steve. Sony announced before the European release that, in order to save money on the PS3 BOM they would not be including the PS2 compatibility chip and would instead handle backwards compatibility through software emulation. The North American PS3 still has the chip.

Mike
Steve sorry but you're wrong. The PAL PS3 never had the EE or GPU from the PS2. Only NTSC 20GB-60GB PS3 had them. ALL the PAL BC of the PS3 was done by sofware.
Cheers
"Considering SCEE PS3s have backwards compatibility implemented by software, this seems a strange choice."

Umm, the PAL 60GB and 80GB PS3s still have the PS2 GPU in there, so it's not all software. The reason why the 40GB doesn't have PS2 BC is that they took the GPU out, so now it has no PS2 hardware at all. Their current emulation solution only emulates the Emotion Engine (CPU). For them to get BC to work on the 40GB models, Sony will need to write an emulator that emulates the GPU as well.