From avforums.com:
[QUOTE]
I got a region A (American) copy of Shoot 'Em Up which is region locked (which i did'nt know about at the time).

After i put it into my UK PS3 and clicked onto the filmes icon (BDMV), the machine thought about it and a message came up in big letters saying REGION INCOMBATIBILITY. Then it goes back to the PS3 menues

Tried it a few times and it done the same over and over again.
So on the last try when the "region incombatibility" message came up i pressed the triangle on the controller, which brings up the pop-up menu and clicked on "TOP MENU" then BINGO the films menu came on .

Everything on the film works OK and the film plays all the way through.

I dont know if this would work on other titles?. But it works on this one

Other reported region A(region locked) titles that also work are (Which are all from New Line):
Hairspray
Mr woodcock
Rush Hour 3
[/QUOTE]

Note: I have only 1 region locked Blu-ray title ... Die Hard 4 in Region B. I tried to boot it using this trick on a PS3 region A ... but it didn't work for me with this title.
News-Source: avforums.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From gamedaily.com:
[QUOTE]
GameDaily BIZ has heard from a corporate retail source - not from Best Buy, but at another major retailer - that something is definitely "afoot" but he "can't really comment (until the 80GBs are gone.)" [parentheses statement added by source, not us - Ed].

Moreover, we spoke with Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey who told us, "Sony is likely dumping the 80GB version because it has failed to meet internal sales projections."

UPDATE2: Well, this is interesting. We just heard from The NPD Group who told us, "In the last quarter (when both were on the market), the 80GB sold more units than the 40GB." When pressed for a more exact breakdown of the sales data between the two SKUs, NPD said they could not provide that. It's certainly a surprise to us, however, that the more expensive 80GB would have sold more than 40GB, which many have attributed the PS3 sales spike to.
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: gamedaily.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From mcvuk.com:
[QUOTE]
* How is PlayStation Network doing in PAL territories?
* One thing that has surprised us is in network purchases and the level of interest that has been shown around the network business. We've gone from zero to almost double digit millions in terms of what people have purchased in euros. And we're obviously very happy about this. I suppose you might ask whether the retail trade would be worried about it. But what we're seeing is that most of these purchases are incremental.
And we're working very closely with the retail trade, particularly countries like France, where Carrefour has its own online retail programme. Even in emerging markets some of the trade are already looking to work with us on joint marketing programmes.
We've now got about two million PlayStation Network registrations. That's about 40 per cent of users who are registering. We've also had about 33m downloads which is a huge, huge number. And we've got 25 stores up and running across the PAL territories. That, of course, is one of the reasons why it's sometimes slow to get some of the uploads onto the European PlayStation store; we have so many stores.

* What everyone is interested in, of course, are the top line numbers...
* Well, Sony Corporation will be announcing the full numbers shortly, so we have to steer away from installed base. But I can give you some figures...
I would call December something of a trinity, because we sold just over a million PlayStation 3s during the month. That's across all PAL territories and that's a sell-through figure.
About 20 to 22 per cent of that figure was sold in the UK alone; we're very happy with our performance in the UK.
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: mcvuk.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From tech.co.uk:
[QUOTE]
Foremost in the hardware race is Sony, which has developed the world's smallest Blu-ray reader/writer module that also happens to be less costly than existing models.

Developed jointly with Nichia of Japan, the new laser unit is just 3mm thick and should help manufacturers miniaturise the hardware in their Blu-ray drives. Sony says it imagines the device ending up in 9.5mm laptop drives sometime this year.
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: tech.co.uk
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From gamesindustry.biz:
[QUOTE]
PlayStation 3 development was a contributing factor to the delay of GTA IV, according to Rockstar's Jeronimo Barrera.

"It's really no surprise to anybody that the PS3 was definitely a contributing factor to that," Barrera told MTV.
"Now, we're neck and neck. That's not an issue anymore. But back then that was something we were taking into account."

Barrera said that the PS3 version was identical to the Xbox 360 version.

Rockstar has officially announced that GTA IV will be released worldwide for both PS3 and Xbox 360 on April 29.
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: gamesindustry.biz
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From ps3fanboy.com:
[QUOTE]
An anonymous Best Buy employee has sent us a scan of an internal letter, which notifies employees that the 80GB system is being discontinued. "The 80GB version of the PS3 is going closeout and won't be replaced at this time," it reads. "It will come off the planogram on Jan. 28. The 60GB version should already be gone from stores. Only the 40GB version of PS3 will be sold in Best Buy stores at this time."

There have been very shady rumors suggesting Sony is planning on introducing a cheaper $299 version of its console (although that has been repeatedly denied by Sony). Earlier in the week, we also discovered an FCC filing for a white model PS3. Whatever's going on, it appears that Sony's making moves for a big change. Stay tuned.
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: ps3fanboy.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From videogamer.com:
[QUOTE]
PS3 installed base in PAL territories will eclipse Microsoft's Xbox 360 by the end of the summer, Sony has claimed.

"In terms of installed base in some of our major markets, such as France, Spain, Germany, Italy, plus some distributor territories in smaller markets like Switzerland, our current cumulative installed base is now higher than that of the Xbox 360, " said Reeves. But what of PAL territories as a whole?

According to Reeves Sony expects "to overtake installed base of Xbox 360 across PAL territories in late summer." To add some weight to Sony's belief, Reeves added that "last week we outsold Xbox 360 in PAL territories by a ratio of 3:1."
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: videogamer.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From next-gen.biz:
[QUOTE]
The Ceramic White PS3 unit is currently only available in Japan, having been released in the region on November 11, 2007, although filings submitted with the Federal Communications Commission indicate that is soon to change.

Sony Computer Entertainment America told Next-Gen via email that it was happy with the existing PS3 models on the market.
"As you may know, there are many FCC filings like this each year. We haven't made any announcements about upcoming PS3 plans, but are comfortable with our current two sku strategy."

However, the statement went on to add, "We are continually evaluating the market trends and consumer input to determine the appropriate PS3 models for our territory."
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: next-gen.biz
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From blu-ray.com:
[QUOTE]
A new NPD Group report shows that stand-alone Blu-ray player sales benefited greatly from the recent announcement that Warner would be going Blu-ray exclusive. The first week of January, before Warner made their announcement, there was a nearly 50-50 split between Blu-ray and HD DVD standalone players. The following week, after the announcement, Blu-ray players grabbed 93% of the market.
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: blu-ray.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From next-gen.biz:
[QUOTE]
It has endured a horrible introduction to the world, but PlayStation 3 has survived. Now it's set to prosper. Next-Gen's editor-in-chief Colin Campbell explains...

* The decision to go with Blu-ray was good because Blu-ray is going to emerge as the winning platform in the war against HD-DVD. It was good because millions of people will be upgrading to hi-def over the next five years. It was good because a significant percentage of them will make PS3 a central part of that upgrade process.

* Up until this point, Xbox 360 has represented the best value. No longer. PS3 is $50 more expensive than Xbox 360 but you get a bigger hard drive, you get a Blu-ray drive and you get to play online for free. It is becoming extremely difficult to argue the case that Xbox 360 is better value than PS3.

* For many people, it looks like a tres-moderne piece of under-the-telly technology. And, what‘s more, it carries the Sony logo and the PlayStation logo. For those of us entrenched in the biz, both these brands carry baggage. But for them out there - the Year 3 Console Adopters, the people who bought a DVD player after the Millennium - these are brands to trust. They speak of sophistication and quality.

* Will PlayStation Home make a difference? When I saw it a year ago, I was convinced that this piece of software would play a major role in the console wars. I still believe it has a touch of genius, the common touch, to take virtual living out of the machismo ghettoes of Xbox Live or the vacant loonyness of Second Life. If it works, it's an amazing thing.

This hardware cycle has confounded most of what we thought we knew about the console games market. We used to believe that there would always be an ultra-dominant console and a distant second-place. We used to believe that third place was no-where. It was once a central belief that games consoles ought not try and be something else; that convergent devices were anathema.
Those things don't seem to hold any longer. All three console manufacturers are in a strong position to take a win from this generation; simultaneously.
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: next-gen.biz (5 pages)
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From psxextreme.com:
[QUOTE]
There's a rumor that began circulating on the CheapAssGamer forum stating that the PlayStation 3 would be seeing a price-drop soon. Certain other members chimed in with their own "knowledge" and vouched for the rumor. The alleged details are a price-drop for the 40GB PlayStation 3 down to $299, which will occur on January 28th.

Now before you get all excited, do note that the chances of this being real are extremely thin. Seeing as how Sony only recently dropped the price of the PlayStation 3, I wouldn't expect them to do so again.
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: psxextreme.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From bloomberg.com:
[QUOTE]
Sony Corp., the world's largest video-game console maker, sold a record number of PlayStation 3 machines in Europe during the holiday shopping season after lowering prices to compete against Nintendo Co.'s Wii.

Sony, which began selling PlayStation 3s in Europe in March, shipped about 1.2 million consoles in the region during the five- week period ended Dec. 31, Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony's game division, said in a Bloomberg Television interview aired today. That's in line with U.S. shipments during the period, he said.

Price cuts and the introduction of a cheaper model helped Sony approach its goal of selling 11 million PlayStation 3s in the year ending March. Still, analysts at Nikko Citigroup Ltd. and Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd. predict the Tokyo-based company will miss the target after being outsold by the Wii and Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360.

Sony, which generated 12 percent of revenue from the game unit during the three months ended Sept. 30, has posted seven straight quarters of losses at the division.

Higher sales, coupled with lower production costs, will reduce the company's operating losses related to PlayStation 3s by 90 percent to $158 million in the fiscal second half ending March 31, according to Dec. 27 estimates by Nikko Citigroup.
[/QUOTE]

Full Story: bloomberg.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From n4g.com:
[QUOTE]
Everyone knows about the Xbox 360 RROD (red ring of death) thanks to some 33% of games consoles getting this problem, now we have proof of the Sony PS3 death with a so called YLOD (yellow light of death).