A new report published Friday by the Mercury News suggests that Sony may already be scrambling to keep third-party developers aboard the PlayStation 3, which has struggled to keep pace with the Wii and Xbox 360.

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"Sony's gaming division has just lost $848 million -- double the figure from last year -- and first-half losses reached $1.1 billion."

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Last month I reported a story on how surge protectors void a PS3's warranty (which was quickly confirmed false by Sony and resolved), but now it seems there is a new threat to the almighty system: DUST! Apparently, dust voids the warranty under the ruling of neglect according to Sony's CSRs and one has to wonder how a system that turned one year old today would expire so easily to just, well, dust. My guess is that either we're not being told the entire story here or the PS3 was a lemon to begin with and should be covered under warranty. What say you?

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Now I have to get one of these done for my plain ol' laptop! ;)

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Many of you probably think we’re crazy to suggest that $500 is all you need to build a decent gaming rig. With gaming systems from Alienware/Dell, Falcon Northwest, and HP/VoodoPC selling for thousands more, this just doesn’t sound feasible. However, this simply isn’t true. In fact, thanks to rapidly falling hardware prices, building a powerful PC for gaming has never been easier!

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Intel began shipping its quad core line of desktop processors late last year, starting with the Core 2 Extreme QX6700. Later, the company shipped the mainstream Core 2 Quad Q6600. Today, Intel has three current products with four cores in its product line, the Core 2 Extreme QX6850, the Core 2 Quad Q6700 (essentially a QX6700 with a locked core multiplier) and the aforementioned Q6600, which can now be found for well under $300. Now that we have a dual-core CPU, the Core 2 E6850 running at the same clock frequency and front side bus speed as the QX6850, it's worth revisiting the issue of whether or not users need four cores.

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Ahem. "tried to fix it on his own based on tips he found online". Why didn't he post the video to youtube, that's what I want to know.

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Game developer are software developers so its not a big stretch to imagine some of these methodologies in play as various game companies. So file this under sad but likely true.

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"We've had agriculture for about 12,000 years, towns for eight to 10,000 years, and writing for about 5,000 years. But we're still living in the dark ages leading up to the dawn of history." This Article is centered around Data Storage in the Future and Human experiance a general good read.

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Microsoft's quarterly results give some insight into how many 360s are failing. With The Register's usual ironic tone, and a few links. (The actual news is at http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/070705/microsoft_xbox.html) Its' not clear where that "30% failure rate" number is coming from, though...

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Everyone with a 360 knows about the ''red light of death''. Now with so many Xbox's having hardware failure is it time for political action? Microsoft is apparently more concerned about fixing broken systems than making the problem go away on newer manufactured 360's.

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Microsoft claims that free software like Linux, which runs a big chunk of corporate America, violates 235 of its patents. It wants royalties from distributors and users. Users like you, maybe. Fortune's Roger Parloff reports.

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Ever have a dream where everything seems to go in slow motion? You really have to do something, go somewhere, escape a threat - but you can't move. That's what happened to my main computer earlier this week.

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The MPAA has been issuing DMCA takedown notices to any site that publishes the number 09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0, the key code used in HD-DVD copy protection. Recently this led to a full-blown revolt starting with Digg, where users plastered the front-page with voted-up articles full of the number. From there, the number has spread to hundreds of thousands of sites in an awe-inspiring display of how legal policy can lead to a PR disaster.

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Remember the Pixar baby? Back in the day, the little tyke was on the cutting edge of 3D rendering. He really was kind of creepy though. Did you know the Pixar baby made real babies cry? LOL Welcome to the uncanny valley. Humans have a huge amount of brain power directed at facial recognition. We see faces in everything! And things that have human face qualities like big-eyed smushie-faced cats are endearing to us...but with CGI, whether in movies or games, one can get too close to real while not real enough, and that tweeks the creep-out zone for most people. This Wikipedia article maps out the uncanny valley so one can avoid going there.

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I have been a member of this for almost two years now. I like the fact you can help others with the processing power of your computer. So if you are like me and leave your PC on overnight, it can be doing calculations needed to help with all sorts of projects, including helping finding cures for cancer and AIDs and many others to choose from.

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nVidia is ready to launch their new mainstream line of graphics cards on the 17th of april, enabling gamers to plug in cheaply for DX10. Estimated prices (source: Vrzone) will be: 8500 GT - $79-$99 Geforce 8600 GT - $149-169 Geforce 8600 GTS - $199-$249 This should get your machine ready and pumped for those DX10 games! You'll still need vista ofc.

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IBM has announced that they'll be using the Cell chip--the microprocessor they developed in conjunction with Sony and is used in the Playstation 3--to power a new generation of mainframe systems that are to be focused on virtual worlds and online games. There aren't many details yet, but one is left to speculate on why a server needs heavy 3D processing capabilites: perhaps IBM envisions virtual worlds of the future handling at least some of the 3D rendering server-side?

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This way if the MPAA sues you they'll have to take the very shirt of your back!

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How is Ageia's plan to revolutionize the game industry with a standalone physics hardware card going? We caught up with VP of marketing Michael Steele to discuss the pivotal year Ageia has ahead of it, and how the company can win over developers and consumers alike.

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