Oh Kenny Kutaragi, if only you were still active at Sony! You’d be doing cartwheels! The PS3 is selling like god damn hotcakes:

Via Gamesindustry.biz

Our top retailers have reported a 300 per cent lift in PS3 hardware sales and an increase of 140 per cent in total hardware revenue across the PlayStation portfolio when comparing the first week of September to the week before the USD 299 price adjustment,” said Sony in a statement.

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Wait, you mean three-thousand music games, four zillion peripherals and a thousand downloads will over-saturate the market? I don’t understand. Guess that’s why I’m not an economist.

Via Destructoid:

NPD Group’s Anita Frazier has cast a grim outlook on the formerly booming music game market, revealing that sales are down 46% from last year.

I just can’t understand how this is happening!

My name is Ian Drinkwater, and I want streaming pornography on the Playstation 3. I want it sold from the Playstation store. I want to be able to click on a menu selection and choose from Goopy Load Wunders 9 or Teasing A Tasmanian She-devil. I want all of this, and I don’t see any good reason why I shouldn’t receive my wish. While there are countless valid arguments for the prohibition of porn from the PS3, I don’t think any of them are solid enough to keep my beautiful dream from coming to fruition.

I don’t have any sort of moralistic argument in support of porn. That debate is old-hat, and either you watch porn or you are miserable and kick kittens. I have done some research, and this is precisely how the two groups break down:

People who dabble in the pornographics

People so unhappy they go straight in the “Right Hand Turn Only Lane”, spend their time writing Left 4 Dead manifestos, try and tell me I have a chemical addiction or two, and still write checks at the supermarket.

I’m arguing against this argument I usually hear:

You want pornographic movies to be sold on a gaming console marketed to kids. And let’s be real, no matter what sort of restrictions you put the console, them kids will always find a way to get around it.

That’s the sort of shit my girlfriend came at me with when I initially broached the topic of PS3 porn with her. I described what I found to be Heaven to her:

Babe, you don’t understand! There’s this network, and you click on it, and they sell movies. Well, the dude from Vivid (do you know what Vivid is? Oh, okay, good), wants to put porn on the network. You could just click on a button and get porn! Isn’t that amazing?!?!!?!?!?

It freaked her out, because I was actually yelling “QUESTION MARK, EXCLAMATION POINT, QUESTION MARKRRRRRK.” I had lost it. Let me tell you, if you combine porn with caffeine, my head almost pops off.

But yeah Ian, you want on porn on something marketed for kids.

Not really. Not at all. Listen, the PS3 is an expensive piece of impressive technology. This isn’t some Nintendo 64, or even a Wii. It’s got Blu-Ray, it has equipment that is significantly more complicated to set-up. Kids who are in little league are not going to be the majority demographic here. That’s not what Sony is marketing towards. Their core audience is people like me. In their twenties or so.

Wonderful girlfriend hopped onto the Internet. With the clickety-clack of the keyboards she asked Mr. Google if I was right. Mr. Google has become the great ender of debates for my generation. Everything can be proven with minimal keystrokes.

Do you think I’d bring this up if I was wrong? Of course not!

Via Gamer.blore:

Nielsen Media Research tried to prove the point by tracking usage data by age and gender for all three of the home consoles. Console activity in all National TV Panel homes was measured.

The PS3 generally seems to appeal to the older generation, with no young kids anywhere in the mix… Both males and females saw the largest usage amongst the 18 to 24-age range.

In an interview about the Playstation Network, where this porn would be bought, PSN director of operations says the PSN demographic is:

Via Kotaku:

Primarily male. The average age is 28 years old, in usually the middle- to higher-income range. They over-index against those with graduate degrees.

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The newest Final Fantasy XIII clip to leak from god knows where and uploaded by god knows who to the internet shows clips from the newest trailer that was totally secret and not shown to the public. How do I know? Because I find this at Kotaku and they were like “This is exactly like the stuff we saw and you didn’t. Because it was secret. But we saw it anyways. We saw the secret clip. That you didn’t.” Check out the video after the jump.

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I like keeping it real with ya’ll. When I’m running on raw emotion, I’ll admit it. And so for full disclosure, I’ve bought both of the games I’m about to discuss.

The very same day that I report that Arkham Asylum has sold TWO MILLION ZOMG copies, EA CEO admits that Madden sales are dropping:

Via Kotaku:

Madden NFL 10 leads the NPD Group’s top ten with 928,000 units sold on the Xbox 360. That’s a drop from last year’s cool million. And while Madden sales were up year-over-year on the PlayStation 3, the game suffered on the PlayStation 2 and Wii, with the sports game moving less than half of what it did on the PS2 from the same period last year.

All told, Madden NFL 10 managed to move 1.9 million copies across all platforms in August, down from the 2.2 million-plus Madden NFL 09 managed last year.

Now listen, that’s still an insane amount of copies. But I’ve always looked at Madden as something primarily for frat boys and jocks. And not cool frat boys and cool jocks. There, I covered myself. So to see it getting outsold by a comic book character‘s video game makes me swell with glee. It’s juvenile, but I cackled a little bit to myself. Sorry EA! Sorry your recycled money-machine that really doesn’t change much every year isn’t printing out the cash like it usually does.

C’est la vie, blowhards!

Arkham Asylum sells two million copies in two weeks. Good god damn! Pay attention, gaming companies! Usually comic book/movie video games eat raw ass. Tons of it. Gobble them out. And maybe the titles, while craptacular will sell to a few mouth-breathing fans and diehards. But spend some time on a comic book game, and what happens? Shit blows up! Arkham Asylum is one of the highest rated games of the year. It’s selling a million copies a week. And more importantly, Eidos has just established a franchise. Churn out crap, and maybe you’ll trick people into buying a title. But blow their god damn heads off, and you’ve gotten repeat customers.

Seriously, anything that follows this game up will be automatically bought by many, including me, because it’s the sequel to Arkham Asylum.

It’s simple, you can churn out slop and hope some tardholes pick it up. Or you can be the rare company that doesn’t rush out a comic book or video game movie, and reap the rewards.

If you know me, you know that I buy all multi-platform games for my 360. Why? Because I’m a douchebag, duh! Just kidding about the d-bag part. But seriously, why? Because they’re better. Apparently European Microsoft Czar Chris Lewis agrees with me! Go figure!

Via Destructoid:

We have a great journey through to Christmas,” boasts Lewis. “There are key titles that are exclusives but also great cross-platform titles that will just work better on Xbox Live. And in terms of content and networking, we have more content partnerships for Xbox Live.

Countless friends of mine want to punch me in the face. Listen, I’ll break it down for you. And here’s a caveat and please don’t disregard this: I’m buying Final Fantasy XIII on the PS3, and should policy and quality shift, I will flow with it. I’m not a blind fanboy. Click the jump for my reasonings.

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It’s already been announced that Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma is going to feature boobs you can shake with your Sixaxis controller. In the following clip, NG2’s producer Yosuke Hayashi teaches nerds in a Spain just how to handle those breasts. I wish someone had taught me how to handle boobs when I was a fat little kid. The first time I saw a pair of bare breasts I freaked out and launched at them like I was Bilbo in Rivendell from Fellowship. ROARRRR and then I just drooled on them a lot. Check out the video after the jump.

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When the Earth was created, there was the PS3. Now there’s the Ps3 Slim. Soon, it looks like there’s going to be the 250gb Ps3 Slim. And even after that, apparently there’s going to be another god damn version of a Ps3 with 3D hardware integrated into it. Strap on your googles, assholes, and get ready to shake your Sony Wiimoteshock at fluttering butterflies or some shit:

Via Kotaku:

According to a Sony rep speaking with Cnet, “over the following two or three years” Sony will begin installing hardware inside the PS3 that will enable the console to display games in 3D.

Fuckkkkkkk. God dammit Sony, come on. I bought your piece of crap PS3 back in 2006 when there were no titles for it, because I’m a hardcore asshole. I just needed it. You prey on people like me. But god dammit, don’t make me buy another console. If your lame-assed 3D plans only become some sort of auxiliary option, that’s fine, whatever. Be a fruit cake. But if I can’t play God of War and Clank 3 because I don’t have the appropriate version of PS3 I’m going to lose my god damn mind.

3D gaming? Fucking come on. This isn’t Universal Studios. I’m a crotchety old man, I cry foul. All the causal d-bags who have propelled a glorified peripheral (the Wii) to insane installed bases will probably straight up ejaculate at the prospect.

To you, I say, catch PAX-Nerd-Flu.

Simply put, Michael Jackson refuses to die. Here he is, sneaking into Final Fantasy XIII. What’s that you said, that’s not MJ? Well, okay. According the the “truth”,

Via Kotaku:

It’s already been confirmed that Sazh was a father – details were scant, however. Here is a first look at his son, who is named “Dodge” and also has an afro.

Sorry guys, can’t trick me. This is Michael Jackson if I’ve ever seen him. Looking all human again. Michael Jackson is like Jean Grey or some shit, reviving from the ashes. Actually, he probably just equipped a Final Attack+Phoenix materia before he passed. Welcome back, little man!