PlayStation Network Outage Stretches Into Third Week

A Sony Computer spokesperson tells Bloomberg that the company plans to restart its PlayStation Network and Qriocity services fully by May 31. Sony had expected to have brought portions of the services back online by now; but the company acknowledged to its U.S. users on Friday that the extent of the April attack on its servers was wider than it thought.

As the criminal investigation into the security breach continues, Sony is considering offering a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of hackers, per All Things Digital.

Sony Confident In Annual PS3 Sales Expectations

Overall game console sales have been sluggish this summer, but Sony Computer’s Kazuo Hirai is not worried, telling Reuters at the Tokyo Game Show that PlayStation 3 sales are on track to reach the company’s target of 15 million units through March 2011. Sales for Sony’s April-September fiscal half were likely just above forecast, Hirai added.

A full 80% of the 38 million PS3 units sold globally so far are linked to Sony’s online PlayStation Network, Hirai also noted.

Sony’s Move motion controller for the PlayStation arrives in the U.S. tomorrow. The company also will begin offering playback capability of Blu-ray 3D discs on the PS3 a part of a software update next week.

Nintendo Plans ‘3DS’ Handheld

Nintendo may climb aboard the 3D bandwagon, announcing that it plans to release a new version of its DS handheld incorporating 3D effects sometime before March 2011. But the tentatively-named “3DS” device, Nintendo says in a statement, will not require users to wear “any special glasses.”

Some game industry observers took Nintendo’s announcement as an attempt to one-up Apple, whose iPhone and iPod Touch have become portable gaming devices in their own right. But the bigger issue for Nintendo, as Forbes points out, is the maturity of the DS platform: the company has sold more than 125 million units worldwide of the current-generation systems (including DSi and DSi XL models).

Meanwhile, longtime Nintendo rival Sony Computer Entertainment tells gamer site IGN that PlayStation Portable fans should not expect a 3D announcement anytime soon. Instead, the company remains focused on building 3D into its Blu-ray-based PS3 console.

Sony: UMD Disc Format ‘Alive And Well’ For PlayStation Portable

Sony’s PlayStation Portable disc-based titles are not going away anytime soon. During a session at the Game Developers Conference last week, the company said its UMD format is “alive and well” and that all retail games will continue to be available on both a UMD disc and digitally on the PlayStation Network store. By IGN

PlayStation Network Service Restored

Sony Computer Entertainment has issued a fix for a bug that prevented PlayStation 3 users from connecting to the Internet for roughly 24 hours. The internal clocks in older-model PS3 consoles, Sony says in a blog post, erroneously recognized the year 2010 as a leap year. The bug triggered a service outage Monday for online gamers as well as those who rented movies and other videos from the PlayStation Store. Sony Computer

Sony’s PS3 Suffers Massive Outage

Gaming sites were abuzz March 1 with the news that Sony’s PlayStation 3 has a bug that is preventing users from being able to access PlayStation’s Internet network and in some cases blocking games from being played altogether. The official PlayStation blog says engineers have “narrowed down the issue” and are working to solve the problem, which was first reported by users on Sunday. By The Wall Street Journal

GameStop: Console Stock-Outs Contribute To Lower-Than-Expected Earnings

GameStop CEO Daniel DeMatteo says the videogame retailer’s holiday sales were impacted in part by unexpected shortages of products such as Nintendo’s New Super Mario Bros. Wii game and the PlayStation 3. Nintendo and Sony couldn’t keep up with demand for consoles, DeMatteo tells Business Week in an interview. “They were out of stock right before Christmas,” DeMatteo says of Sony’s PS3. By Business Week

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