PLAYSTATION 3 FORUMS: PS3 News and discussion

Watch Sony’s GDC 2010 Press Conference Live at 4PM PST!

Live Streaming by Ustream.TV
The 2010 Game Developers Conference is taking place in San Francisco this week, but you can watch Sony's press conference today in whatever room of your home you deem fit thanks to the glorious live stream above (and yes, pants are completely optional, provided sans-pants is appropriate attire for the room you pick).

The conference kicks off at 4PM PST (7PM EST), so come back in a few hours to watch whatever big reveals and announcements Sony has planned as they happen. Will we get more info on their motion controller? Maybe the first official motion controller games? Maybe an actual name besides "Sony Motion Controller"? Or maybe new games that don't have to do with the motion controller at all!

Come back at 4PM, and we'll all find out together.

Benefit planned for LaFayette tot (Kewanee Star Courier)

A benefit is planned for Saturday, March 27 at the LaFayette Park District for a 1-year-old LaFayette girl who has undergone five open heart surgeries after being diagnosed with heart defects. Addison Grace Nowlan turned 1 on Dec. 2. Before she was born, she was diagnosed with several heart defects. Her condition is very rare. The defects include dextrocardia, L-transposition of the great ...

PlayStation Home Updating to 1.35, Getting FF13 Items

Sony is still hard at work supporting PlayStation Home, and is planning to roll out a new update tomorrow that will add several new features. The PlayStation.Blog outlines the additions, which seem to focus on ease of use for the virtual space. This will bring Home up to version 1.35, and Sony is touting it as a "streamlined interface." The feature list includes:

Favorites: Personalize your own section to make locating your favorite places quick and simple.
Personal Spaces: Your clubhouses and personal spaces are now right at your fingertips. The personal spaces you own and the clubhouses you belong to will be viewable in one convenient location.
Friends: Finding your friends in PlayStation Home has never been easier. View the current location of your friends in PlayStation Home, and then navigate there to enjoy the action together.
Explore: Browse all the spaces PlayStation Home offers. Finding a space that suites your taste and mood has never been easier.
Recommend: Keep up with what's hot in PlayStation Home. This regularly updated category will feature the newest and most exciting additions to PlayStation Home.

Though the new features focus on making Home faster and easier, it may not be enough to bring back the lapsed user base. We've heard recent reports that advertisers are pulling away from Home, so Sony is probably hoping this will bring in enough new users to attract advertisers. The company boasted over 12 million registered users of the virtual space, but didn't specify how many of them use it regularly.

Final Fantasy XIII Ships 5 Million Copies Worldwide

Square Enix has shipped over five million units of Final Fantasy XIII globally, according to a report from Adriasang. This includes three months of availability in Japan, during which the company apparently shipped about two million units. The other three million were sent out this week for the North American and European releases. Square also boasted that the Final Fantasy series as a whole has shipped over 96 million units.

Of course, we should note that this is units shipped, not sold. We won't really know the sales numbers until next month's NPD data comes in. But it's fair to assume Square will be putting at least a few million units into the U.S. retail chains during the month of March, and the Final Fantasy name should have no problem selling most of them. Check out our review and details from the launch party for the anticipated RPG.

All about Japan’s Anti-Violence Game Rating System

In Japan, the equivalent of the ESRB is the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization (CERO), the industry outfit responsible for giving content ratings to every console game released in the country. CERO rates based on a scale of five letters: A (all ages), B (ages 12 and up), C (ages 15 and up), D (ages 17 and up), and Z (ages 18 and up only).

That "only" attached to the Z rating has been the source of consternation for many a gamer in Japan. Unlike the ESRB's "Adults Only" rating, CERO's Z seems to be applied almost exclusively based on violence standards -- if there's too much blood, you're out. What's worse, while a Z on the box isn't as bad as an AO rating in America (or being refused classification at all in Australia, effectively banning it from shelves), it essentially means that the game cannot be advertised in any public manner within Japan.

The situation came to a head recently when Sony's God of War III was given a Z, even though the first two games both got D ratings in Japan. Game-store owners were, to say the least, miffed. "[The Z rating] basically means I can engage in no practical advertising," one Tokyo-based store owner blogged last month. "There are no TV ads, no videos playing in the store. The best I can do is put up posters and flyers, but no matter how great the game is, you can't show what makes it fun with still images. Capcom [the publisher of GOW 1 and 2 in Japan] spent all this time building up the brand, and now it's all ruined!"

Japan Review Check: Yakuza 4, Bad Company 2

A recap of the best games due to hit Japanese shelves next week, courtesy of Famitsu magazine's review pages:

- Yakuza 4 (9/10/10/9, 38 points): We haven't gotten Yakuza 3 quite yet, but the sequel's already out in Japan, and it's apparently a scorcher.

Everybody loved the new game's multi-viewpoint storyline to bits. "The heroes are packed with personality," one wrote. "Each one has different moves, and it's fun to try exercising all of them during the fights. The story has tons of exciting developments for all four characters, and the way they all tie in together in the final chapter is incredibly hot." Another reviewer called it a shame that series hero Kazuma Kiryu "doesn't get much face time," but "getting the story from four perspectives is fresh and lets you experience the town of Kamurocho in a whole new way."

dot.Rory (BBC News)

BT's boss comes out fighting on file-sharing rules

Tickets available for Rotary Casino Night (Perkasie News-Herald)

Tickets are still available for the Pennridge-Perkasie Rotary Club’s Casino Night scheduled for Saturday, March 6 from 7 to 10:30 p.m. at the Sellersville Moose.

EA Sports Offers Early Look at New MMA Game

An early look at EA Sports MMA reveals that Strikeforce will be the main promotion featured in the game. You can compete not only in the Strikeforce hexagonal ring, but also have your fighters pound away at each other in a circle cage or boxing ring.

3-D TVs Hit Fayetteville (KNWA Fayetteville)

Best Buy sets up its first display on Friday and customers have mixed reactions.