Sony Corp.

Sony Not Replacing Blu-ray, 1TB Blue-violet Laser Will Come Though

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 29, 2010 | 5 comments

Sony along with Tokyo University has been working on a new laser with a 100 watt output for some time now. Those who remember when the transition from DVD to Blu-ray began to take place heard many similar things between those two formats. Now with this new blue-violet laser, being able to output 20 times more than the lasers used on traditional Blu-rays, each disc could hold 1TB of data or more. Sony calls it the “world’s highest output values for conventional blue-violet pulse semiconductor lasers.” Now of course just because this is being created in the labs it does not mean that it will turn into a product or at least a consumer-based product. So put your pitch forks down, your Blu-ray player is not becoming obsolete already.

Sort Of Hands On With The Sony Alpha A390 and A290

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 28, 2010 | 55 comments

While we hope Sony one day gives us love by hitting our Contact Us page and offering us units to demo and review, we won’t neglect our readers from gaining some more insight on the new Sony A390 and A290 that we reported on. The guys over at Engadget got to spend some time with it and were so far impressed saying “we were certainly impressed by both cameras’ build quality” and “the 2.7-inch LCD looked sharp and served us well for all purposes“. So hit them up for some pictures of these new units.

[Via Engadget]

Sony Shows Battle: Los Angeles Trailer, Sort Of

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 27, 2010 | 5 comments

Comic Con 2010 was the first ever Comic Con attended by SonyRumors and me personally. As you probably know, every studio does what it can to draw attention to what it thinks is a winning movie and for Sony, it’s Battle: Los Angeles. This was a story that I actually covered a little while ago and it still seems to hold up. Sony believes this movie and it was obvious during Comic Con. From the above shot, you can tell that everybody was going to know about that movie. During the event itself, Sony showed an alien invasion trailer that is a mix of Black Haw Down (Sony movie) and Independence Day. So to feed the appetites of those who did not attend or missed the trailer, Sony has now released a 4 second trailer. No joke, it’s 4 whole seconds. I don’t really get it? But I’m hoping to see more from all of the positive buzz this movie gained during Comic Con 2010. Look for the film to hit on March 11th, 2011.

New DC Universe Online Trailer

by Jenni Petot | Jul 26, 2010 | 38 comments

From San Diego Comic-Con this epic cinematic trailer was revealed and I had to share. Not much else I can say, the trailer speaks for itself. Hope it gets you as excited as I am for this PS3 console exclusive game. In stores November 2nd.

Sony and FIFA Help Africa

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 23, 2010 | 44 comments

For those of us who were glued to our television for the past month, we know that Sony was one of the sponsors of the 2010 World Cup. The sponsorship that Sony and FIFA had was partially based on the advertisement that Sony ran during the World Cup, but also how the World Cup infrastructure ran. For those not familiar, it takes a lot of equipment to make the World Cup run. From the 3D Sony camera’s that were used to televise all the matches, to the laptops that were at the disposal of the staff to communicate with one and other. Also, Sony provided thousands of Bravia LCD screens to be placed throughout the studios so all the fans had access to the game, even when they were not seated. But now the games have come and gone and that leaves a lot of equipment around that won’t be needed.

This is where Sony and FIFA’s “Football For Hope” program comes into place. Sony, with the help of FIFA will be donating over 350 Vaio laptops and 4,000 Bravia televisions to local schools, clinics and community youth projects. Hidemi Tomita, Sonys General Manager went on to say:

“We feel, at the conclusion of this wonderful tournament, that it’s imperative that the equipment provided by Sony for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa will serve a social development initiative within the country,” explained Hidemi Tomita, General Manager, CSR Department, Sony Corporation. “The Football For Hope initiative has empowered organizations to touch lives through education and awareness in key areas of social development. As a corporation we are committed to support the sustainable development under our Corporate Social Responsibility key concept, ‘For the Next Generation.'”

In a time of the global financial trouble and the poverty that is in Africa, it’s nice to see a company step up to the plate and take care of the people. In this case, it makes sure that the community of Africa has access to modern equipment that can help them envision the future and be part of it.

[Via FIFA]

Grown Ups became Adam Sandler’s Highest-grossing Movie Since Click

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 22, 2010 | 8 comments

Sony Pictures Grown Ups, staring Adam Sandler continues to do well at the box office. Bagging in another $9.9 million this weekend, down 37% from the prior week, this month released comedy now stands at $138.7 million world wide, becoming Adam Sandler’s highest box office gross since 2006 when Sandler and Sony Pictures made Click. While Click went on to make $237.6 million world wide, it was able to bring a little more then half of the gross, $137 from the US that soon, Grown Ups will pass. What Grown Ups might not be able to achieve is the total gross as it stands at $129 million for the US market and only $9.5 million from its international intake, but to be fair, the movie has yet to have a full world wide release. However, Click had a much more universal concept to it then Grown Ups. Sony Pictures other movie out, The Karate Kid has just crossed the $221.7 million gross world wide, making it the number 1 grossing action remake.

[Via BoxOfficeMojo]

A Look at the Potential of the Playstation Move

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 22, 2010 | 12 comments

The guys over at TechRadar have been able to spend some time with the Playstation Move and really get to know the system and break it down for those who have yet to get any hands on time with the product. Not only do they discuss what the system currently offers and what it can eventually offer, they also deal with the topic of this being just a Wii HD and how this differers from the 360 Kinnect. A highly recommended read. As always, I would love to spend some time with the Move but have never had the opportunity. I’m one of those people who hates motion based gaming but am excited for the Move. So if Sony can turn me, they should have no problem with the rest of the people. So what do you say Sony? Contact Us?

[Via TechRadar]

Sony Pushes the Social Network on Twitter

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 21, 2010 | 2 comments

On October 1st, Sony will be releasing its new movie, The Social Network, based around the creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. With the tag line of “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies”, you can bet that this David Fincher movie is not going to be a 2 hour promo for Facebook. So it comes as no surprise that Facebook doesn’t want these ads on their own site (and it’s actually Facebook policy that no ad that references Facebook is allowed. So Sony has turned to the second largest social network site now: Twitter, by buying its trending topic area to display #SocialNetwork as one of the topics. Anybody familiar with Twitter will know that trending topics are what’s being greatly discussed and Twitter allows companies to buy those spots for advertising. Those who click on it will be driven towards 500MillionFriends.com where Sony hopes to gain attention to their new movie.

Sony Ericsson Posts Another Profit, BP Oil Spill Also Stops

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 20, 2010 | 8 comments

Wow people. That is two miracles in one month. Sony Ericsson has honestly been the BP of Sony, oozing out random phones that never made much sense or were too expensive for anybody to afford. Sony itself never knew what to do with the brand name and it seemed like everybody was stuck in this awkward relationship where Sony fed them the parts and Ericsson made something. Sony Ericsson used to be a very highly profitable brand for Sony and in the world, they were a leader of the new and sexy. This all changed a little over 3 years ago when Apple introduced the iPhone. Suddenly, you either had to be a fully functional smart phone or you were oblivious to everybodys radar. But being just a smart phone isnt enough either with iOS4, Android and Palm and soon Windows Phone. This transition really caught many of the big players like RIM and Motorola and Sony Ericsson off guard. Making a phone with sleek design, high quality and great individual components like an 8MP camera is one thing, having it jump on the web, publish to Facebook and get apps is another beast. You need a platform for that and Sony didnt have one.

BP was finally able to get an cap on the huge gulf spill thats pretty much ruined the planet. Wall*E and Big & Large, here we come. Sony Ericsson seems to have made its own oil cap, Android. On Friday, during Sonys second quarter earnings call, they Sony Ericsson division was able to pull of a second profitible quarter in a row. Profit for the three months to June 30 was €12 million ($15.5 million), compared with a €213 million loss a year earlier, sustaining a turnaround that started in the first quarter, reports the WSJ. Now of course, things in some ways are only going to get tougher from here on. Apple was able to ship 3 million iPhone 4 unit so far, HP has bought Palm to drive that division and its presence in the Smart Phone Market and Microsoft will be bringing its Windows Phone series in late 2010. This all means more competition in the market but can also mean more revenue for Sony.

The one benefit that companies like Sony and HTC have is that they are not in the OS side of it. Meaning, they can make as many phones as they wish. Apple will clearly only put the iOS on the iPhone. Palm will only run its software on their phones (sense they make the hardware and software). All Sony has to do is to use current software from the likes of Google and Microsoft and make the best damn phone they can. They dont need to worry about the battle between MS, Google and Apple because they can be too busy making fantastic phones and if one platform goes to hell, they can continue to make phones for the other platform. Even better yet, Sony can make both Windows based phones and Android based phones. This way, it’s a win win.

[Via WSJ]

Sony Introduces E450 and A840 Walkman for Europe

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 20, 2010 | 112 comments

Although the Walkman is a dead and almost nonexistent product in the United States, it’s still doing okay in the European and Japanese markets. Mainly because of these two large markets, Sony has put out another revision to its Walkman lineup… although it seems sometimes that Sony will update products whether people are buying them or not. Let’s get to some specs.

The E450 sports a

4, 8 and 16GB
2” QVGA screen
SensMe (plays songs according to the mood you choose)
Support of MP3, WMA, AAC, Linear PCM, AVC(H.264/AVC), MPEG-4, WMV
Bluetooth for bluetooth headsets or streaming
FM Tuner (yay?)
50h music playback (you see that, iPod Nano?)
10h for video

The bigger brother, the A840 comes with

Up to 64GB
2.8” WQVGA AMOLED screen, TV out (480p)
FM (again, yay?)
Noise Canceling (beautiful feature)
Support of MPEG-4, MP3, WMA, AAC, HE-AAC, ATRAC, ATRAC AL, PCM/wav.

Sony Pictures Television and DirectTV Save "Damages"

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 19, 2010 | 2 comments

If you have been a fan of the show “Damages” on FX, it’s been a rough year for you. After months as the negotiation table, everything fell apart due to the high cost of the show. Even though the fans were showing up for the show, the number of viewers was not high enough for FX to justify the high costs of putting in another season. This is when DirectTV and Sony Pictures Television stepped in to bring back the Glenn Close legal drama with an order for 20 new episodes–two seasons each consisting of 10 episodes–to be produced early next year. Many times, satellite providers are able to pay a higher cost for a show due to the additional revenues they bring in from their subscribers. In this case, DirectTV gives the show a home and Sony Pictures Television picks up the production side of it.

Patty Ishimoto, general manager of The 101 Network and vice president of entertainment for DirectTV said, “We’re excited to partner with Sony Pictures Television as we breathe new life into this outstanding drama.” She concluded with, “It’s a win for our customers because only they will be able to see these new episodes and another great step forward for DirecTV as we continue to build our growing portfolio of exclusive, award-winning programming.”

Sony Launches New SACD Player, The SCD-XE800

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 19, 2010 | 9 comments

For those who are audiophiles, 1999 was a fantastic year. This is when Sony and Phillips decided to launch a new format called Super Audio CD. The promise of these discs was superior audio, having the capability to be in true surround sound (not just the same audio cue coming from all of your speakers). To this date, a little over 6000 SACDs exist but the format never really caught on with the main stream consumers.

Therefore, it comes to me as a surprise that Sony has released a new SACD player, the SCD-XE800. Priced at $430 for an August 21st release in Japan, this unit is meant as an entry-level SACD player. Buyers can expect a frequency response of 2Hz〜40kHz (SACD)/2Hz〜20kHz (CD) and a dynamic range of over 100dB (SACD)/96dB (CD). As always, these units will also read the traditional CD as well. If I was a user of SACD, I’d be happy that Sony is still supporting this format but as a person who is interested in the bottom line of Sony, I’m not sure I like the move. Why would Sony invest the money and resources to create, ship and sell a format that more or less is dead? They can indeed take the same money and invest it in its core areas that Sony really needs to fight off its competitors with. This comes to a larger problem with Sony that it offers so many different products for different segment markets when in reality, it needs less product lines and more sales per product line. No word yet if this unit will make it out of Japan.

[Sales fact via Wikipedia]

Hulu Plus on the PS3 Video Walkthrough

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 17, 2010 | 74 comments

Although I’m a Playstation Plus member, I’ve only been able to download the Hulu Plus app but not use it since I’ve yet to be selected to participate in this beta like process for the time being. If you want to know about the Hulu Plus program overall, hit up our previous coverage of it. But if you already know about it and want to see in action, the guys at Joystiq got their hands on it and it’s beautifully simple.

[Via Joystiq]

Playstation 3 Sales Number Explained

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 16, 2010 | 11 comments

I wrote earlier today that the Playstation 3 has been on a roll as of late. With 11 months of growth, the PS3 has been outselling the Xbox 360 on a month to month basis, yet it doesn’t feel like it; it is still hard to run into people who own a Playstation 3. During a normal conversation you hear, “Alright man, I’m gonna jump on Live tonight” or “Lets play some Xbox”. Part of this is due to the cultural shift that I won’t get into, but Playstation lost that during the awful first two years it had. The other part comes in with the numbers:

Xbox 360 sits with a total of 40.77 million while the PS3 has 35.74 million. For just a difference of 5 million, it seems odd to feel this gap I spoke of, correct? As it turns out, it’s all how the numbers are broken down.

In Japan, the Xbox 360 sits at 1.34 million while the PS3 sits at 5.33 million. There is a big gap there.

In Europe, the Xbox 360 sits at 15.73 million while the PS3 sits slightly ahead at 16.19 million.

The big gap comes in the United States where the Xbox 360 sits at 23.7 million and the PS3 trials at 14.22 million.

That little state right there explains why in the US, the 360 still has a such a huge presence, even though there has been nothing going on with that console for almost 2 years now. So yes the PS3 is doing well, but in the United States, it still has a lot of work to do.

Sales numbers [Via VGChartz]

You Can Find A PS3 Slim On Shelves Again

by Sohrab Osati | Jul 16, 2010 | 18 comments

The Playstation 3 Slim, aka PS3 Slim, is finally back on shelves at a healthy rate. After experiencing an 11 month growth rate, Sony has been able to finally get production to meet demand and keep the PS3 on store shelves. This really seems like an odd thing, considering how far off we are into the product cycle. But to those watching the PS3 close, they will know that after the price cut during last year’s E3 event, the $299 units have been rocketing off shelves. Followed by huge hits like Uncharted 2, God of War 3, Heavy Rain and Final Fantasy XIII, the Playstation 3 momentum has been on a cycle high. PS3 sales over have been up 85 percent since June 2009 and 42 percent since January 2010.

“Video games are fueling new innovation for the entire consumer entertainment category and today’s numbers are a testament to the big impact we’ll play this holiday,” said Patrick Seybold, Sr. Director of Corporate Communications at SCEA.

“With a healthy flow of PS3s back in the channel, and eleven months of PS3’s consecutive growth behind us, we’re confident the PS3 will become the main entertainment hub for many new consumers this year and provide countless reasons to congregate in the living room.”

It seems like the consumer is really starting to warm up to the Playstation brand again, even though it doesn’t feel that way (more on that later). With a fantastic lineup coming later this year with big titles like Socom 4, Killzone 3, LittleBigPlanet 2 and Grand Turismo 5, which are all exclusive to the Playstation platform, Sony is betting that consumers will want to game with them while the Xbox 360 only has Gears of War 3 to offer. Also, Sony is betting big with its Playstation Move. Starting at just $49 vs. the Microsoft Kinnect at $150, this lower entry price will hopefully allow Sony to grow its install base even higher and wider as it draws new users in.