Dec First of all, I’d like to thank all of you who voted in the Mashable Open Web Awards in the past month or so. We took home Best Corporate Blog – which is a great honor, I assure you. We absolutely couldn’t have done it without you, so many, many thanks to you from the team.
Let’s also talk next week; obviously it’s a short week, so we’ll be transitioning to holiday content on Thursday (looks back at 09, as well as well wishes from your favorite devs). As on Thanksgiving week, the PlayStation Store will update this Tuesday for the final time in 2009.
The PS Blog weekly reading list (Week of December 14, 2009)
- VGA 2009: Claudia Black talks about our favorite subject, Claudia Black – Joystiq
- 15 Games that Defined the PlayStation Brand – Joystick Division
- XSeed Games Announces Limited Premium Packaging for Lunar: Silver Star Harmony – IGN
- How to play Minis on your PS3: a Halfbrick tutorial – Joystiq
- PlayStation Home Has Ten Million Registered Users – Kotaku
- #4 Richard Lemarchand / Neil Druckmann – IndustryGamers’ 2009 Persons of the Year – IndustryGamers
- Home Produces Sodium – Kotaku
- Solstice shifting Demon’s Souls to ‘pure white tendency’ for short time – Joystiq
- VGA 2009: Flower developers amidst the explosions and hype – Joystiq
- PSP’s Digital Comic Reader Quirky, But Enjoyable – GameLife | Wired.com
- Morning Hangover: Lessons from Uncharted 2 Multiplayer – G4tv.com
- Heavy Rain: Can a Video Game Make Me Care? – Bitmob
- PSP Digital Comics Impressions – The Quarter Bin
- Play Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Today – IGN
- Preview: MLB 10 The Show – Destructoid
- Sessler’s Soapbox: Congratulations Uncharted 2 – G4tv.com
- X-Play’s Best Of 2009 Winners Announced! – G4tv.com
- Killzone 1 and 2 Side-by-Side – Killzone.com
- Get your Final Fantasy XIII Trophies right here – Destructoid
- Christmas light hero – Make: Online
- PixelJunk Shooter Review for PlayStation 3 – GameSpot
- VGA 2009: Naughty Dog’s Evan Wells talks Uncharted 2 DLC, focuses on multiplayer – Joystiq
- Sony Talks 2010: “Project Natal and Wii are going to have trouble” – GamePro
- 10 best PlayStation 3 games of 2009 – msnbc.com
- Unboxing the Final Fantasy XIII limited edition PS3 – Joystiq
- Discussion Review: LittleBigPlanet PSP – VGBlogger.com
- PS3 Beta Update! – Battlefield: Bad Company – Battlefield Blog
- Patrick Klepek, Andrew Pfister, & Michael Demski’s Five Recommended Games From 2009 – G4tv.com
- Sony Computer Entertainment CEO on Sales – FOXBusiness.com
- Get Set For The Gran Turismo 5 Demo With Some Screens – Kotaku
- The Brutal Winter Ahead: 11 Reasons the cold isn’t so bad. – Kombo.com
- Heavy Rain Impressions: An Ambitious Sorrow – Kotaku
- PixelJunk Shooter and the Joy of Discovery – Bitmob
- Heavy Rain: Hands-on with the Opening Chapters – IGN
- Amazon Dishes Deals On Batman Today, PS3 Tomorrow – Kotaku
- Preview: Heavy Rain – Gamervision
- Metacritic: Sony’s PlayStation 3 Tops Annual ‘Power Rankings’ – Gamasutra
- Are You Bad Enough To Buy A Hannah Montana PSP? – Kotaku
- Star Ocean: The Last Hope International Has Extra Characters – Siliconera
(Average: 4.30 out of 5)
1
+ Kchow23 on December 20th, 2009 at 12:07 pm said:
Interview with Naughty Dog creative director Amy Hennig, who along with the talented game director Bruce Straley:
http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/701417/Feedback—-The-Uncharted-2-Game-of-the-Year-Edition.html
and Congrats video to Uncharted 2 from Sessler:
http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/701369/Sesslers-Soapbox-Congratulations-Uncharted-2.html
+ Jeff Rubenstein on December 20th, 2009 at 4:20 pm said:
Hey, I linked to that!
2
+ TRIX_BOL on December 20th, 2009 at 12:31 pm said:
A huge congrats to the PlayStation Blog Team for walking away with Best Corporate Blog of 2009. Also the VGAs 2009 are over, but I need to recognize this people for their fantastic job developing amazing games; Naughty Dog, thatgamecompany, and Sony Santa Monica.
Keep it up guys, specially Sony Santa Monica. So we could see God of War III taking home the Game Of The Year award in 2010.
+ Jeff Rubenstein on December 20th, 2009 at 4:20 pm said:
Thank you.
3
+ perrandy on December 20th, 2009 at 12:42 pm said:
gonna try and grab the lunar silver star premium.i already pre ordered the wkc game but i’m still undecided about star ocean 4…
anyways,i think that you guys should do the premium thingy just for the movies and music. because charging for playstation online functionality aka xgchat is just wrong ihmo
4
+ Caemgen on December 20th, 2009 at 12:54 pm said:
On an unrelated note, I’ve got a suggestion:
With the release of Modern Warfare 2, the PSN finally got fully incorporated cross-game invites and the option to join a ‘session in progress’ through the in-game XMB.
Now, those of you that have been playing MW2 (or the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Beta for that matter, as it also uses cross-game invites), surely noticed that it can be a bit annoying to manually scroll through the XMB to get to your received messages when you’ve just received an invite. Sure, it’s not really THAT much trouble to get there, but wouldn’t it be very convenient to be taken straight to the message/invite when you press the PS button during the time the notification is displayed in the upper right corner?
So, my suggestion is:
• When notified about a received message/invite, pressing the PS button will take you straight to that message (so you can join or reply immediately from there), saving you some time.
• When the notification dissapears again, pressing the PS button will function in the same way it always does.
It’s a simple enhancement to the User Interface and I hope Sony will incorporate this in a future firmware-update.
5
+ PullusPardusUS on December 20th, 2009 at 1:19 pm said:
hey jeff aren’t you guys going to make drastic changes to the blog? im really looking forward to it, and might as well ask for change of the forums too please!!
+ Jeff Rubenstein on December 20th, 2009 at 4:13 pm said:
I don\’t know about *drastic*. I don\’t think that\’d be warranted.
6
+ Berae on December 20th, 2009 at 2:25 pm said:
Will we get Blue Toad Murder Files and Dead nation in that last update?
+ Jeff Rubenstein on December 20th, 2009 at 4:16 pm said:
Not this week, no.
7
+ Capt-Fury- on December 20th, 2009 at 2:47 pm said:
hey Jeff, any chance for new avatars before 2010? anyways, Greg Miller made a great article on the PSN avatars situation (you should check it out)
8
+ onlineatron on December 20th, 2009 at 3:09 pm said:
I’m loving all the positive Heavy Rain previews.
The Eurogamer preview was my favourite
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/heavy-rain-dec-hands-on
Can’t wait to experience the ‘game’ at the end of February (right, right?) =P
9
+ onlineatron on December 20th, 2009 at 3:21 pm said:
@Berae
Dead Nation is 2010.
10
+ angelspawn77 on December 20th, 2009 at 3:21 pm said:
sucks we have to wait till january to see the new GOW3 footage, I cant wait to see it! So jeff can you tell us if we will get to see it early january or late? please let it be early january! like first week of january!
+ Jeff Rubenstein on December 20th, 2009 at 4:17 pm said:
Mid-January.
11
+ StuntF50 on December 20th, 2009 at 3:27 pm said:
Good stories this week. Add these to the list:
http://scrawlfx.com/2009/12/final-fantasy-versus-xiii-gameplay-trailer-shown-at-jump-festa-10
http://scrawlfx.com/2009/12/star-ocean-the-last-hope-ps3-gets-anime-box-art
12
+ onlineatron on December 20th, 2009 at 3:35 pm said:
@angelspawn77
January 1st would be lovely! =D
Why is it being kept from us anyway? We know it exists, we know it’s awesome and we know we want to see it bad!!
So what gives? Is it too early to promote it?… if that’s the reason, it just doesn’t make sense! =(
13
+ angelspawn77 on December 20th, 2009 at 3:39 pm said:
@ onlineatron, i agree. When the video interview with jeff was shown on the blog, i thought “why cant they just show it!?” They can just take the video and post it on the blog, i dont see why we have to wait either :/
14
+ MadMeat001 on December 20th, 2009 at 3:46 pm said:
it would be great if more people own a PSP like me so i could play multiplayer
+ Jeff Rubenstein on December 20th, 2009 at 4:19 pm said:
50 million+ not cutting it for you? :-)
15
+ katsuo7171 on December 20th, 2009 at 4:31 pm said:
Hey Jeff what’s the fastest time in te office for the Gran Turismo Time Trial. I’m at 1.41 with the tuned and 1.55 with normal. Also I don’t have a wheel which is a huge bias towards those with a dualshock.
Is there any way you can tell the guys at polyphony to balance out the difference between the wheels and the dualshock? Because I’d rather buy a PS3 slim for 299 than a wheel for 399.
16
+ Velzorn on December 20th, 2009 at 4:33 pm said:
Here’s something that should have made this list. It’s definitely something Sony should read:
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/105/1056185p1.html
17
+ sweetJ211 on December 20th, 2009 at 5:21 pm said:
is playstation network going to start charging for online play
18
+ jayyy91 on December 20th, 2009 at 5:28 pm said:
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/105/1056185p1.html
19
+ Zezzler on December 20th, 2009 at 5:38 pm said:
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/105/1056185p1.html
Here Jeff, you missed one ;)
I strongly believe this too, and hope that it changes. A pretty nice week too.
20
+ dragonmagician on December 20th, 2009 at 6:05 pm said:
A Happy Holidays to everyone on the PS blog.
21
+ Sup3r_l33t_N1nj4 on December 20th, 2009 at 6:21 pm said:
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/105/1056185p1.html
Everyone read it and for our sake Jeff do something about this mess. 3.00 launched in September with hopes of new avatars shortly but all we’ve gotten is hints about premium avatars. All we know is that they’re NOT going to be free and the one that are going to be free are going to be just as bad as the ones we have now. i love my PS3 so much but what is going on with the XMB and changes? Nothing is getting done.
22
+ Consolcwby on December 20th, 2009 at 6:32 pm said:
I really hate Joystiq and Kotaku. I’ve been b&4l1fe at those places for telling the truth a few years ago when it was all the rage to bash on the ps3… The peeps who ran the site are gone, but I’m still b&4l1fe.
23
+ brock0979 on December 20th, 2009 at 7:39 pm said:
Yea thats what I want to know also!!!
24
+ LOSTLEAD8R on December 20th, 2009 at 8:14 pm said:
I like the 15 that define Playstation. i totally agree. But they missed jak and daxter. :/
25
+ mikedo2007 on December 20th, 2009 at 9:02 pm said:
Jeff, on joystiq and Kotaku, I keep hearing something about PSN getting a premium service. Please tell me if this is true or not?
26
+ bolivianlegacy on December 20th, 2009 at 9:08 pm said:
will there be any chance that we can get ps2 games on the store i would pay good money to play gta:SA again i prefer it more than gta:IV
27
+ angelspawn77 on December 20th, 2009 at 11:22 pm said:
mid january is not too bad, better than late january.
28
+ Cheddare on December 20th, 2009 at 11:24 pm said:
@16 Maybe its because you write things like “b&4l1fe” <— people don't appreciate wanna be leet speak, especially like 10 years out of the counter-strike era.
@19 they don't know whats going on….. The execs can't even make up their minds. Now I don't work for sony, but by the looks of what has been posted (on Kotaku) things like cross game chat and the likes will be pay-to-use services, Thanks sony….. that's what I bought your console for, to pay you more money.
Note to Sony: Wanna see the psn fail miserably and your online gaming community drop users like it has aids? Make people pay for a severely lacking service. As I stated last week you have a long long way to go before you ever even insinuate that people should pay for psn, the fact that this stuff is getting out is just making most the userbase angry. A recession is not a time to pull this stuff out a lot of people are still hurting.
29
+ fuifuimoimoi on December 20th, 2009 at 11:35 pm said:
Hey Jeff. Are you still talking to Namco Bandai about Tales of Vesperia? Or do you think PS3 owners should just accept it isn’t coming?
30
+ Daimomaru on December 21st, 2009 at 3:07 am said:
Guys I keep hearing that the Tetris mini will not be available for the upcoming PS3 compatibility system. I bought the game in preparation for the feature and now you people are saying that it won’t work for a PS3! I don’t have a PSP and I don’t want to think I just threw my money down the sink. Please make the game available so that me and the other people that bought this game for the same reason (to play it in owmr PS3) can play it in the PS3 system thanks.
31
+ Letters2Kay on December 21st, 2009 at 3:10 am said:
I’ve got to say, that was a pretty lame roll-out of Minis to PS3. I bought Tetris after I installed the 3.15 update only to find that the feature wasn’t even implemented at that time. I looked around and found out it’d be up on the 17th. The 17th came and Tetris got a $3.00 discount and no PS3 support. I feel a little ripped-off as I bought it specifically to play on PS3. You could’ve been a little more specific as to which titles were going to see a PS3 conversion – I read all the pertinent blog posts before I purchased and the way it was announced, it certainly seemed like the whole “Minis” line was going to be playable on either console. Not so, obviously.
32
+ Letters2Kay on December 21st, 2009 at 3:13 am said:
On a positive note, LBP PSP is as amazing as all the reviews are saying and the PS3 trophy sync seems to be fixed and working splendidly this week. Thanks for that!
33
+ Bzrro20 on December 21st, 2009 at 3:52 am said:
Trophies for PSP games and Home content feel like the next big step for Sony. I think those would be great additions.
The Tetris minis thing: yea, it was a mistake, and hopefully it will not happen again. Lots of people find that kind of information very important, especially now that we have different consoles put out by the same company, and then implementing emulators.
Otherwise, I have been thoroughly impressed at what I have seen coming out into the marketplace. Keep it up.
34
+ highlanders2012 on December 21st, 2009 at 6:23 am said:
Hey Jeff, I’ve always wondered. Is the ‘read’ in the title pronounced reed or red?
35
+ zombie9 on December 21st, 2009 at 7:35 am said:
JEFF said-”As on Thanksgiving week, the PlayStation Store will update this Tuesday for the final time in 2009.”
That’s cool Tuesday update but next Thursday is the 31st and we should have one more update before 09 ends. I hope we get a Tuesday update next week for New Years being on Friday. Also happy holiday every one!!! Probly my last post this year!!!!
36
+ IrishPete333 on December 21st, 2009 at 8:34 am said:
@Zombie9,
Jeff stated that Tuesdays(12/22)update will be the last update of 2009. That means there will not be an update next week. It’s the holidays man, even the people at Sony take time off.
37
+ zombie9 on December 21st, 2009 at 9:45 am said:
LOL, if they update it tomarrow 12-22 and never again this year (next update 1-7-10) Thats 16 days (I will go crazzy I think) :)
38
+ IrishPete333 on December 21st, 2009 at 10:14 am said:
Hopefully they will just make it 2 weeks worth of content. Or something so good that we won’t even think about an update for a few weeks.