360 sales surge, PSP continues to flounder

DUE TO THE revisions of current hardware, the Xbox 360 has recorded a 260% increase in sales week-on-week in the UK - while the PSP suffered its worst week since its original launch. Hopefully the launch of the new slim-line PSP on September 14th should reverse Sony's fortunes.

PS3/PSP
For more information on the Sony PSP slim - see this Engadget round-up, where PSP Fanboy and Joystiq partake in a slim PSP info fest.

It didn't take long after the release of Sony's slim PSP in Europe for someone to get inside of new handheld, which led to some unexpecteddiscoveries.

After inspecting the motherboard and comparing it to boards from the original PSP, it's being reported that the newest iteration features '66MB of NAND memory including spare data' which trumps the amount found in its predecessor and additionally that the 'idstorage area is now fully encrypted.'

More over at Maxconsole - with a variety of board pictures.

The PS3 received a firmware update to 1.92 this week, which was limited to performance enhancements for the PlayStation Store and PS2 game support. Eurogamer reports that the firmware upgrade is pretty much ineffective in Europe.

It's of no surprise that analysts are stating that the 80GB PS3 will come down to $499 in the US this Christmas - many have predicted this once the 60GB stock had depleted. The latest notes from Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter and simExchange's Jesse Divnich have seen both analysts predicting the imminent price drop - more at Gamasutra.

Pictures surfaced this week of the box for a new Playstation 3 starter pack for Europe, complete with a changed line-up of games, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

The picture suggests that the pack will replace the current included games (Motorstorm and Resistance: Fall of Man) with two other SCEE titles: new release Heavenly Sword, and launch title F1 Championship Edition. As before, it will also include a 60GB PS3 and two Sixaxis controllers.

Xbox 360
Microsoft issued a one-day Xbox Live ban this week, to 23,000 Xbox 360 owners who took advantage of an exploit allowing unauthorized gamers to take part in the restricted Call of Duty 4 multiplayer beta.

The bans were reportedly administered after it emerged that players with valid beta keys were able to sign in on another Xbox 360 and download the beta for that console, allowing access to users who didn't possess a beta key.

The exploit has since been resolved and Microsoft has flexed its muscle in a bid to deter similar attempts in the future, warning that repeat offenders could be subject to permanent Xbox Live bans.

The Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on has received a European price-cut to the tune of 20 Euros - now selling at 179 Euros.

A report from Betanews could see this price drop even further if news of Chinese involvement evolves further.

A consortium of Chinese university engineers and government officials, in cooperation with a Chinese video standards group that includes globally recognized manufacturers, plus the DVD Forum, have come to an agreement on a standard specification for a blue-laser disc mechanism and format specifically for the Chinese market.

The DVD Forum's involvement has evidently made it possible for Chinese manufacturers to produce components that play blue-laser, high-def discs using a Chinese national standard (AVS), but which are fundamentally compatible with HD DVD with only minor adjustments.

This could mean only slight alterations are necessary to sell drives and components for HD-DVD play-back at rock-bottom prices.

Hopefully this might mean we can start to purchase trendy accessories like this chrome Xbox 360 HDD enclosure. Nice.

Wii/DS
Not much news for Nintendo lovers this week, but we do have one of the first shots of the Wii wheel.

Market research firm Media Create has revealed data for weekly hardware sales in Japan for the week ending September 2nd, and the news wasn't too hot for Nintendo.

Mirroring a slow week of sales in the software charts, hardware sales in Japan have continued to record a seasonal low. Nintendo DS sales fell below 100,000 for the first time this year, down by over 6,000 units to 94,339 in total.

Hardware sales for other formats are also at a low ebb, with the PSP falling by almost 4,000 units to 22,196. However, the Playstation 3 saw an increase in sales of over 1,500 units to 18,068.

As always, ensure you check out Eurogamer's Wii Virtual Console round-up before splashing out your hard earned cash. µ

See Also:
Save the planet and buy a Wii
One console to rule them allbr> PS3 powers server farms
PS3 gets ready to rumble with DVR