geekosystem

Gamers are a passionate group of people, but that's no excuse to go stabbing anybody. We guess nobody told Jose O. Cruz of Allentown Pennsylvania that though. He was arrested yesterday afternoon for stabbing his girlfriend and her father during an argument over a PlayStation.

Because recent news stories haven't been crazy enough -- or maybe because we just needed that extra push to cross the point of no return -- here's one that makes sense only if you've watched like thirty Harlem Shake videos back to back. Snoop Dogg -- or the Lion formerly known as Dogg -- is making a video game called Way of the Dogg for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation. In it, you will learn to fight at his temple. I mean, duh.

Sony didn't give us a look at what the PlayStation 4 actually looks like during their event last night, but it's safe to assume it is not a human-sized robot that shoots lasers from its eyes. That didn't stop the goodly folks at Next Media Animation from speculating as such. Their animated version of the event is borderline insane, and a lot more fun to watch than the event itself.

It's finally happening! The time has come! Today is Rex Manning Day! At 6pm EST, Sony PlayStation will officially start their event. If you've been following along, the entire world -- including us -- seems to think that the video game giant will reveal their latest home console, the PlayStation 4. Given the amount of hype that's been built, it'd be foolish to do anything else.

Good news for Chinese gamers! China is thinking about lifting its ban on game consoles. The news is just speculation right now, and it's based on the Playstation 3 receiving a quality certification from the Chinese government, but even that speculation has been enough to bump up stock prices for Sony and Nintendo, both of which are champing at the bit to enter the Chinese market. Obviously, a lifting of the ban would help those companies greatly. It might also destroy the mental and physical development of Chinese children, since that's what the ban was trying to protect.

They say when something isn't broken, don't fix it, and Sony's DualShock controllers -- first released in 1997 for the original PlayStation system -- is a prime example of this timeless maxim. Applauded for its intuitive design and general comfort, Sony has been sticking with virtually the same controller design for the last 16 years, experiencing only minor tweaks that never diluted what made it so popular with the gaming community. With the PlayStation 3 gradually fading into the background to make room for its successor, it has been reported that Sony will be eschewing the tried-and-true DualShock route in favor of a new controller utilizing touch screens and other features for the fourth installment of their best-selling line of game consoles.

How the mighty have fallen. Credit rating agency Moody's has dropped their rating on long-term bonds issued by Sony to it's lowest investment grade, marking them just one notch above junk bonds. For the couple of you that might not be investment bankers out there, this means that the agency believes there is a very, very good chance that the Japanese tech giant is in real trouble and may not be able to pay off its long-term debt.

1997 was quite a while ago, but many gamers will remember it as the year that Final Fantasy VII hit the market. However, 1997 was also the year of a lesser-known title, a vehicle shooter named G-Police. Though critics noted that the game suffered from an inconsistent draw distance and poor controls, the game was popular enough to warrant a sequel, G-Police: Weapons of Justice, which released in 1999. Thirteen years later, its countdown timer webpage is still up and running, counting so far down that it has broken through the negatives barrier long, long ago.

Europe usually gets the proverbial shaft when it comes to the video game world. Given that a number of popular developers hail from either the United States or Japan, Europe can be left out of the publishing cycle in embarrassing ways. Sometimes games never even show up on their shores, despite being everywhere else. With the recent update to the PlayStation Vita, however, our European brothers and sisters are finally getting some love. Whereas North America is able to download a grand total of nine original PlayStation titles, Europe will be able to grab 129.

After a very long, excruciating wait, thatgamecompany's Journey has finally been dated and priced. The game will release on the PSN, soon-to-be dubbed SEN, on March 13, 2012 in the U.S., and will cost you a most likely very well spent $14.99. All signs point to this game being one of the best game releases in a long while, regardless of its cheap price tag and digital download only status, so you probably want to mark that date on your calendar, and hide an emergency $14.99 somewhere just in case.

When done right, nothing is more instantly recognizable and associable as a catchy sound bite. Once upon a time, instantly recognizable jingles were the backbone of the advertising industry. Today,  audio clips are a little more pervasive, considering our seeming dependence on electronic devices. Receive a phone call? Catchy audio clip. Get an email? Catchy sound bite. Turn on just about any modern electronic device? Memorable tune. We're living in a world where companies and devices need to differentiate themselves from the competition as much as possible, and an instantly recognizable sound bite is a three-to-ten second mean to that end. So, come with us as we check out some of the most instantly recognizable, brand differentiating, nostalgia inducing sound bites in tech.

Yesterday, a post on the Playstation blog reported that there was recently a hacking attempt against Sony online network family. It appears that the neer-do-wells managed to liberate a list of accounts and passwords from an unknown third-party and proceeded to throw them up against the PSN, SOE and, SEN walls to see if anything stuck. A scant 93,000 accounts (thats less than .1% of the global user base)  were affected, and Sony reports that those accounts were locked down with all due haste; very few had the chance to be active before being locked. Also, no credit card numbers are at risk. Phew. Considering their track record with this kind of stuff, it's good to see Sony be upfront about exactly what's going on with them. Of course, it also looks really good in this case, because they seem to have taken care of it well and it totally isn't their fault. The announcement stresses that Sony will reimburse any purchases that are confirmed to be unauthorized and also stresses the importance of using unique login-password pairings, gently suggesting "If your account was affected, it's kind of your own fault." It kind of is.

Ever since the "It Only Does Everything" campaign, Sony has been pretty good at marketing. The character of Kevin Butler was one of the most amusing things ever to happen to video game marketing, but now Sony is traveling off of the comedic path and doing something a little more serious. With this new ad, part of the "Long Live Play" campaign, Sony has collected their current famous mascots and iconic characters from games that appear on their platforms, put them in a tavern, and has them praise "Michael," a representation of the everyday gamer; essentially a representation of you.

The ad features a bunch of favorites, including Uncharted's Nathan Drake recounting a story to Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning (okay, maybe not everyone's favorite characters), God of War's Kratos, a chimera from Resistance, inFamous' Cole MacGrath discussing Empire City's ambivalence toward him, Metal Gear Solid's Old Snake thankfully quoting everyone's MGS meme line, Twisted Metal's homicidal ice cream truck driver Sweet Tooth playing chess with LittleBigPlanet's adorable Sackboy, and even Portal's Chell for one second in the background (1:15 into the above video). A few other notable characters make a quick appearance. Not has Sony made it fun to watch an ad over and over again, trying to discern who makes an appearance, but they made iconic characters like Nathan Drake and Kratos honor you. Good work, Sony.

(via PlayStation Blog)

There's always buzz about when the next PlayStation or Xbox is going to come out, or who's going to win the next presidential election, but have you ever thought about how many more PlayStations, Xboxes or presidential elections you're going to see before you bite the dust? Well, whether or not you have, this original Geekosystem infographic will tell you. By doing a little research, a couple of maths and ignoring a massive number of potential variables like premature death, bankruptcy, game-changing inventions, and the end of the world, I came up with 12 things that you will see before you die. Get ready to get pumped for the PlayStation 11.

While the Kinect has been getting most of the love from the hack-minded gaming community -- and Microsoft, smartly, is encouraging innovation by working on a Kinect SDK -- it's neat to see that Sony's PlayStation Move hasn't been totally left behind. pabr.org has used the Move to build what it calls a Copernitron, which plays on a keen understanding of physics to measure the Earth's rotation.