From tvpredictions.com:
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Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow says Blu-ray player prices will likely not fall under $399 this holiday season.

"(The player will be) in the $399 range...I don't expect it to go much lower than that," Glasgow said today, according to TWICE Magazine.

Glasgow made his comment today following an announcement from Wal-Mart that it will sell the Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD player for $98 as a special pre "Black Friday" sale starting tomorrow.
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Full Story: tvpredictions.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From thesixthaxis.com:
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Anyway, aside from that, within the comments is a reply to someone asking when the next firmware will be, and the representative from ThreeSpeech says there'll be something on that tomorrow, and the release will be within the next two weeks.
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Full Story: thesixthaxis.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From gaming.hexus.net:
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Conclusion:
So. Which of the three distributions [Xubuntu 7.10, Yellow Dog 5.0.1, openSUSE 10.3] above would I recommend? None of them. Not a single distro maintained a consistent, high-quality experience from installation to prolonged use. None of them is usable by your grandmother, or in most cases, by you. For the experienced Linux hacker, it's probably possible to beat some sense into these distributions (with Xubuntu probably closest to useful, when combined with the Petitboot boot loader used by openSUSE). But it's not a good choice - simply the least bad.

Considering the strides being made by desktop Linux on desktop x86 and x86-64 machines, it's immensely disappointing that so little time and effort has been spent on testing PS3 releases, when so much geek street-cred is up for grabs. When I first decided to write this article, I had high hopes for what it might reveal - after all, a lot of time has passed since PS3 Linux first appeared, and it seemed obvious to me that there would be a selection of tuned distributions to pick from, especially considering the high visibility of the PS3. But right now, typing this up on my x86-64 Linux desktop, I find myself preparing to retire PS3 Linux completely for another few months - at least until the next batch of distributions are released. And beyond initial curiosity value, I suggest you do the same.
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Full Story: gaming.hexus.net (6 pages)
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From kotaku.com:
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New York-based importer National Console Support warns customers today that getting their hands on a Japanese version of the DualShock 3 might be tricky. It writes in its semi-daily news updates that offers from one overseas distributor has the following requirement: "In order to obtain 1 Dual Shock 3, we also have to buy 1 PlayStation 3 40GB console." That's a hefty tax.

NCSX urges caution to rumble-hungry games, warning them to wait until stock levels off or distributors offer more sane pricing schemes.
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Full Story: kotaku.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From blog.us.playstation.com:
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Like all of you, I've been a big fan of our new blog - but until now, I've been staying behind the scenes. I'm excited to share my first post here and thought that our new advertising campaign for the PS3 would be of interest to everyone. In fact, the campaign is scheduled to break this weekend in conjunction with the introduction of the new 40GB PS3 here in North America. But as a reward for being some of our most loyal fans, I wanted to get this out to all of you first.

Last year, we launched the PS3 with a campaign that become known as the "White Room" and we received a strong reaction to those ads for being provocative and demonstrating the PS3's power. With those technology messages now firmly embedded, we wanted to move beyond the "power" message with a more high-energy, entertainment driven focus for the PS3. The games are here, the price point is now $399 and we wanted to make the news loud and clear. But we need to deliver that in a way that befits the PlayStation brand. And so, beyond the brilliant HD games that the PS3 delivers, you'll also see a big focus behind the PS3's Blu-ray movie capability and, for the first time, you'll see a major focus behind the PLAYSTATION Network (did I mention online gaming is free on PS3??) and the exclusive gaming content available on the PLAYSTATION Store, as well as breakthrough services like Home. As Kim noted in her recent post, with so much brewing inside the PS3, the icons and characters of the PS3 world come to life in the vivid black onyx world of the PS3 and nearly burst out of its seams.
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Full Story: blog.us.playstation.com (+ videos)
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From gamasutra.com:
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A New York Times report suggests Sony might consider selling its animation division to companies interested in expanding their work into the game business -- while SCE and Sony Online Entertainment are not part of any possible deal.

According to the report, Sony Pictures has hired investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin to assess two of its divisions. One is the Sony Pictures Imageworks, the 15-year-old studio which produces visual effects for movies, while the other would be a "no more than 50 percent stake" of the Sony Pictures Animation, the studio which produced movies such as the recent CGI family film Surf's Up.
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Full Story: gamasutra.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From the press release:
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Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. today announced that PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) computer entertainment systems, part of Stanford University's Folding@home program, have enabled the distributed computing project to be recognized by Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed computing network in the world. The record was initially set on September 16, 2007 as Folding@home surpassed one petaflop(*1), a computing milestone that has never been reached before by a distributed computing network. In addition to this, the collective efforts of our users have enabled PS3 alone to reach the petaflop mark on September 23, 2007.

The record is a testament to the widespread participation of PS3 users from around the world-currently more than 670,000 unique PS3 users have registered to the Folding@home network, bringing the overall computing power of the program to more than a petaflop. Thanks to PS3's powerful Cell Broadband Engine(TM) (Cell/B.E.), scientists will now be able to make greater progress in their studies of protein folding and its link to diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and certain forms of cancer.
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Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From computerandvideogames.com:
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The much-talked about PS3 2.0 firmware could be with us within days, following new 2.0-compatible features being added to PSP.

Newly-released PSP 3.72 firmware contains new Remote Play features which require the associated PS3 to be running on firmware version 2.0 - which has been hyped to high heaven within PS3 internet communities.

Among a whole slew of new features, PS3 version 2.0 is widely expected to add the ability to browse the Cross Media Bar menu while running a game, drastically improving the console's overall functionality.
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Full Story: computerandvideogames.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From gamasutra.com:
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In a brief announcement, Konami has confirmed that the release of key PlayStation 3 exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has been delayed until the second quarter of 2008.

Although the game has never had a release date any firmer than "this winter", Konami has itself described the new release date as a delay, indicating that the move is "in order to make further improvements to the quality of the game and provide even greater enjoyment for more customers worldwide."
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Full Story: gamasutra.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From gamesindustry.biz:
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Sitel, an outsourcing company specialising in customer care, has been awarded two honours for its Sony PlayStation solutions.

The company won Best Private Sector Call Centre at the Marketing Direct Connect awards and was also honoured with Utilities and High-Tech Outsourcing Project of the Year by the National Outsourcing Association, for its PlayStation campaigns.
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Full Story: gamesindustry.biz
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From engadget.com:
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It's been revealed that the new 40GB PlayStation 3 features more than just a cut down hard disk drive. Sony has also thought to stick the 65nm version of the Cell inside the new console, reducing the power usage down to around 135 Watts (down from 200 Watts.)
Sony also jiggled around a few other components by making the heat pipe smaller, swapping out the motherboard for a new version, and added a button battery to keep time when the system is off.
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Full Story: engadget.com | computerbase.de[via google translate]
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From engadget.com:
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Don't etch this one in stone just yet, but for those keeping a close eye on studios and which camp(s) they support, here's the latest. Reportedly, a so-called Blu-ray Festival has been raging in Hollywood, and aside from BD backers showing up in support of upcoming / existing films, there have also been a few interesting remarks uttered along the way. Most notably, Dan Silverberg, VP of high-definition media for Warner Home Video, stated that "one thing that may be changing is [Warner's] strategy," and he continued by proclaiming that hardware prices had reached a point where consumers "no longer wanted to decide" which format reigned supreme. The speech actually got interesting when he mentioned that the "notion of staying in two formats for the duration is something the company was re-evaluating."
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Full Story: engadget.com
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

From gamesindustry.biz:
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Sony has announced that it expects losses at its videogame unit to double for the year ended March 2008, from JPY 50 billion (303.5 million) to over JPY 100 billion (EUR 609 million).

According to a report by Reuters, a spokesperson for Sony said although the firm will see massive losses in the games department, the general electronics business will see an operating profit margin of five per cent by the end of the fiscal year, one per cent above targets.
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Full Story: gamesindustry.biz
Discuss on our forums: forums.ps3scene.com

Here are some of the effects that you can do with the new PlayStation Eye and EyeCreate software.