2008 will probably be the last year we’ll see anything remarkable happen on the PS2 ever again. As the year concludes, we’re taking these last few days to look back and reflect upon the titles that have come out for this veteran console — a system which has outlived its contemporaries long after they’ve retired. While 2007 was easily the “Year of the J-RPG,” 2008, however, is a bit more difficult to define.

As 2008 marked PS3’s second full year out on the market, the PS2 was unfortunately overshadowed and came out with a dwindling amount of new games and even fewer new IP. If there ever was a theme associated with this year, it would be “the final push” as this year was all about remakes, rereleases and some last minute revivals in an attempt to keep the system still going. So what titles are those exactly? After the break we showcase eight PS2 titles which stood out of the crowd this year. It’s a rather diverse group but one whose impact won’t be felt again in the upcoming year. It’s time for the PS2 to stand down and pass the torch.

Continue reading PS2 in 2008: A year in review

PS2 in 2008: A year in review originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Fri, 26 Dec 2008 11:00:00 EST.

Considering the large number of complaints on the PlayStation Forums, it looks as though this is a widespread Network-wide outage. There’s no word yet on what’s causing this problem or when it’ll be fixed. Stay tuned.

[Thanks, Tariq!]

PlayStation Network experiencing Trophy issues originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:08:00 EST.

There’s no better way to prove you’re a Killzone 2 fanboy than to don a Killzone costume in PlayStation Home. amazon.com is offering a unique promo for those that pre-order the upcoming FPS on their site. According to the online retailer, players will receive “costume pieces for your head, torso, legs, hands and feet; you can customize your Home avatar to look like an ISA Soldier, a Helghast Assault Trooper, or something in between.” This offer is currently an exclusive to the retailer, so you may want to take advantage of this rather unique deal. The patient types, however, will wait and see what other shops are offering for pre-ordering the game.

[Via NeoGAF; Thanks, Noshino!]

Pre-order Killzone 2, get free ISA/Helghast costumes for Home originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Sun, 28 Dec 2008 19:15:00 EST.

What exactly were you expecting? It’s new year’s week, which means no games. Are you really done playing through all the great games that came out over the last four months? Always one to buck the trend, Europe has a game coming out that we’ve never heard of, so if you’re really desperate that might be an option. Here’s the list:

US Games
No new releases

EU Games

• Hei$t

Asian Games

No new releases

All release dates are subject to change, so keep checking websites and calling your local retailers. Don’t worry, they told us they don’t mind.

Worldwide PS3 releases for the week of December 28th originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Sun, 28 Dec 2008 20:00:00 EST.

Nothing too exciting in terms of Blu-ray releases this week, but Firefly fans will be extremely glad to see Serenity make its debut in the HD format of our choice:
Oh, you mean you didn’t get enough of Matthew McConaughey’s hair plugs and shirtless torso in the tabloids and Fool’s Gold? Then we highly recommend Surfer, Dude. If you liked Dead Space, you should check out Event Horizon — both are of the sci-fi/horror genre with religious overtones. The rest of the theatrical releases are above.

Blu-ray releases for the week of December 28th originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Sun, 28 Dec 2008 21:00:00 EST.

It’s well known that Sony’s latest console is a powerful, expensive piece of tech. When Sony launched the PS3, it lost over $200 on every unit sold — in spite of its $600 price point. However, over time Sony has been able to reduce the costs of manufacturing the system, by removing PS2 compatibility and switching over to a more efficient 65-nanometer chips.

iSuppli, the company which broke down the PS3 at launch, estimated the cost of making a PS3 was more than $840. Now, they say the PS3 costs 53% less to make — at around $445, for a system which sells at $400. Sony is still losing money on each system sold, but in a much less extraordinary way.

Not only are the individual components cheaper to make, there are simply less things inside a modern PS3. According to iSuppli, the number of parts inside a PS3 has fallen from 4,048 to only 2,820. Since launch, Sony has reworked the innards of the PS3 to include combined chips. The falling price of components also helps Sony a lot: the Cell processor cost $89 at launch, but now only costs $46 to make.

Sony should be able to break even with the PS3 starting in 2009, which makes us wonder if they’ll start adopting a more aggressive price strategy late next year. We hope so — they need a way to make themselves attractive to customers, without breaking the bank.

[Via PlayStation Forums]

PS3 costs 53% less to make now than at launch originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:45:00 EST.

We’re not sure why, but it seems that quite a few of you out there are buying Home pay-for content. In an interview with Silicon Alley Insider, Susan Panico (Senior Director of the PlayStation Network) says that content in the social networking service is selling tremendously. In fact, in the first four days of the open beta Home produced more money for Sony than the video download service did in its first week.

We’re disheartened to hear that one of the biggest sellers is the ridiculously priced Santa outfit. So if you went ahead and bought a £5 Santa suit: congratulations. You’ve just told Sony that it’s okay to charge 79p for a pair of virtual gloves.

Panico says it’s “a classic 80/20 model, where 20 percent of your customers create 80 percent of your income.” Makes sense to us. There’s already a very vocal pro-Home community. We’ll be happy to join in next month when some of that promised content starts to drop.

[Thanks Nav]

Home items selling like hotcakes originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:30:00 EST.

The waiting’s finally over. Today’s biggest release is easily the LittleBigPlanet Metal Gear Solid downloadable content, but there’s plenty of other stuff to take a look at today. Not least of which is Lumines Supernova. There’s also a load of the normal music-based DLC, plus some unexpected content for Disgaea 3. As if that wasn’t enough, the PS1 classic RPG Suikoden also finds its way onto the Store today. What an awesome holiday gift. Here’s the full release list:

Playable Content

• Jeopardy price drop (now $9.99)
• Lumines Supernova ($14.99)
• Lord of the Rings: Conquest demo
• Suikoden PS1 game ($5.99)

Add-on Content

• Buzz! Quiz TV “National Geographic: Undersea” quiz pack ($7.99)
• High Velocity Bowling “patches pack one” (free)
• High Velocity Bowling “Gutter Bird Ball” ball (free)
• LittleBigPlanet DLC (listed after the break)
• PAIN “Ao No Kutsu” character ($0.99)
• Disgaea 3 “Adell” character ($1.99)
• Disgaea 3 “Nekomata” character ($0.99)
• Disgaea 3 “Rozalin” character ($1.99)
• Disgaea 3 “Disgaea 2 character pack” ($4.99 — comes with Disgaea 2 main char theme)
• Lumines Supernova “holiday pack” (free)
• Shaun White Snowboarding “glamour pack” ($4.99)
• Guitar Hero World Tour DLC (listed after the break)
• Rock Band DLC (listed after the break)
• Karaoke Revolution DLC (listed after the break)

Continue reading American PSN releases for December 23rd

American PSN releases for December 23rd originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:21:00 EST.

Merry Christmas from SCEE. Today’s update brings three full games, three demos, the normal extreme amounts of music-based DLC and, of course, the LittleBigPlanet Metal Gear Solid pack. There are also a bunch of price drops on some excellent PSN games (though, is it just us or has WipEout HD always been that price..?). Savage Moon is good fun, particularly if you’re a tower defense fan. There’s also a ton of PSP content, which you can check out over at PSP Fanboy. Here’s the full release list:

Playable Content

• Savage Moon full game (£6.29/€7.99)
• Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom full game (£7.99/€9.99)
• Street Fighter Alpha Warriors’ Dreams PS1 game (£4.79/€??)
• WipEout HD demo
• Metal Gear Online demo
• Sonic Unleashed demo

Seasonal Offers

• WipEout HD (£11.99/€14.99)
• Super Stardust HD (£3.99/€4.99)
• PAIN (£3.99/€4.99)
• The Last Guy (£3.99/€4.99)
• Toy Home (£3.99/€4.99)
• echochrome (£4.79/€5.99)
• Toy Home: Second Gear expansion (£1.59/€1.99)
• Snakeball Team Mode add-on (£1.59/€1.99)
• Eye of Judgment Set 2 & 3 combo pack (£8.39/€11.99)
• flOw (£3.99/€4.99)

Add-on Content

• LittleBigPlanet DLC (listed after the break)
• Shaun White Snowboarding “Glamour” pack (£3.99/€4.99)
• Buzz! Quiz TV “National Geographic: Undersea” pack (£6.29/€7.99)
• Everybody’s Golf: World Tour “Mainichi Issho Lobby Character Headwear” (free)
• Everybody’s Golf: World Tour “Toro” character pack (free)
• Rock Band DLC (listed after the break)
• Guitar Hero World Tour DLC (listed after the break)

Continue reading European PSN releases for December 24th

European PSN releases for December 24th originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:10:00 EST.

If you planned on playing Penny Arcade Adventures: Episode 2 this holiday break, you may want to wait. Many users are reporting a gltich which renders their save files completely useless. Selecting a corrupted save file will freeze gamers on a permanent “Loading” screen.

The problem has since been identified, and will be patched soon. However, due to the holidays, SCE QA is taking a little break. That means this patch won’t be available until the new year, in January. Right now, it’s unclear if a patch will fix any current save files. Considering the Penny Arcade Adventures aren’t too long, starting over shouldn’t be too bad — but we’re sure players would rather not.

Penny Arcade: Episode 2 features game-ending glitch, patch coming next year originally appeared on PS3 Fanboy on Wed, 24 Dec 2008 09:50:00 EST.