Gaming and financial analyst Roger Eherenberg’s epic post tracking EA’s stock price and strategy is a great great read which he’s just revisited and revised. I’m actually still ingesting it all after the third read, but I can’t help but agree on just about every point raised. Focusing on EA’s mistake with focusing too much on the PS3, the article also takes Sony to task for their continued mis-steps in getting the PS3 into the homes of gamers and Nintendo’s brilliantly handled Wii which Eherenberg predicts is replacing the PS2 as the console of choice for mainstream gamers.

Read more: EA Revisited: Playing Catch Up on the Wii, Waking up to the Failure that is PS3

Wow! That’s all I can say. Many think of me as a Sony-hater, but I’ll prove them wrong here by saying how amazing this looks, but oh, this is for he PS2! Granted, give the devs a few years and $30 or $40 million dollars and they could pump something even more beautiful out on the PS3, but, who can afford a PS3 plus games, plus accessories anyways?

Check the video after the jump..

Read more of “God of War 2 Pegasus gameplay video, who needs a PS3?“

Game designer / celebrity David Jaffe (God of War) recently live-blogged a focus testing session for Calling All Cars, the upcoming PS3 download title and there’s much to take away from it. It’s quite clear Jaffe cares deeply about his craft and it’s also pretty fucking clear that high quality focus testing groups are hard to find.

An amusing back and forth over IM between Jaffe and Adam (one of the designers):

adamorth (6:00:57 PM): GOD DAMMIOT!!!!!
spdrmn375 (6:01:06 PM): what?
adamorth (6:01:13 PM): not only is #4 stupid, but he’s a fucking asshole
spdrmn375 (6:01:18 PM): y?
adamorth (6:01:23 PM): jesus!
adamorth (6:01:27 PM): what a fucking snot
spdrmn375 (6:01:29 PM): what?!?
adamorth (6:01:39 PM): no swag!
spdrmn375 (6:01:49 PM): lame
adamorth (6:01:55 PM): he called me an idiot
spdrmn375 (6:02:01 PM): why?!?
adamorth (6:02:18 PM): becuase i told him not to keep pressing the buttons
spdrmn375 (6:02:24 PM): for what reason?
adamorth (6:02:46 PM): because he kept rushing through the menu to create game ahead of the host
spdrmn375 (6:03:07 PM): ah…sweet! BLOG TIME!!!

Read more: David Jaffe live blogs focus testing for Calling All Cars

In what can not be considered a good thing, the Playstation 3 has posted it’s worst week of sales since it’s launch in Japan. The Media Create sales numbers for the week ending January 14th show an overall slump in sales all around, yet still paint an unflattering picture for the Playstation 3, showing sales at 25,531 units, not a particularly strong showing for console so recently launched. Nintendo Wii sales were also down, posting it’s second-worst week of sales since it’s launch, with 93,708 units sold, though it’s unclear if anyone can consider selling almost 100,000 units a week a bad thing. Media Create takes sales data from around 3,000 retail stores across Japan, extrapolating them into national sales estimates.

See the Japanese software sales charts for the week ending January 14th after the jump..

Read more of “Playstation 3 has worst sales week in Japan so far“

Via the latest issue of Famitsu, the only gaming magazine that matters in Japan, Square Enix has confirmed they are developing Final Fantasy Anniversary Edition, containing remakes of Final Fantasy I and Final Fantasy II. Both editions will see the addition of new content, such as new dungeons, a monster database and an Amano gallery mode, though no word yes on if there will be any graphical updates. The title will be out sometime in 2007 for the Sony PSP, followed by the usual porting time which all Western Final Fantasy fans are used to by now, before reaching stateside.

Read more: Final Fantasy anniversary editions confirmed

With HD-DVD currently under fire from modders who have recently began “backing up” their HD-DVD movies, rumors are starting to pour in that an early exploit has been discovered for the PS3. HDTV Blogger reveals that multiple independent sources are reporting that an exploit has been found via the PS3 which reveals title and volume keys for Blu-ray disks via the PS3. The procedure requires some minor modding of the boot process and Linux. We’ll post more information as it becomes available, *if* this rumor (did I mention it’s just a rumor so far?) develops.

Read more: Rumored Blu-ray exploit via PS3 discovered

Following in a long line of bad news for Sony, it was announced that LucasArts and Kuju have split ways, resulting in the cancellation of PSP original title Traxion. A customizable rhythm title, Traxion was gaining lots of traction (har har har) after being announced at E3 2006, the game combined a unique style of gaming and music by featuring over 20 mini games (no online casino though) which would adjust to the game’s licensed music and even your custom music stored on the PSP.

At a time when the PSP desperately needs titles which show off the unit’s media and gaming capabilities after gluts of lackluster ports, casino games and boring original titles, this must come as a somewhat hard blow to anyone still holding out hope of a PSP resurrection anytime soon. Or are the aforementioned problems possible reasons for the game being canned, the world may never know.

Read more: Traxion dumped, Kuju and LucasArts break up

It’s been posted hundreds of times before (Slashdotted in 2003 to be exact), but I still love seeing this beautiful shelf of clustered PS2s at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and Computer Science department at the University of Illinois. Utilized for the power of the Emotion Engine CPU, the PS2 supercomputer cluster is used as a test bench for scientific computation on ‘toy’ hardware and consists of 65 compute nodes, 4 user login and development nodes and 1 prototype node for software install tests. The cluster is running the Sony Linux kit running a ported Linux distribution based on Red Hat Linux. I’m not sure what the current state of the cluster is, if it still even exists, but I’m sure they can easily add in a few PS3s to the mix, they’re not hard to find, what what I hear (har har har).

Read more: Scientific computing on the Sony PS2

A recent interview with analyst Paul-Jon McNeely of American Technology Research brought to light analyst expectations that the Sony PS3 shortage is in full effect and Sony is stretching themselves thin with the upcoming European launch. McNeely expects the PS3 shortages to last into the Summer with Wii shortages to last until early Spring. With no stock to sell and few killer apps coming for the PS3, it looked a bit as if Sony would be in for a hurting this holiday season. But it’s not so, since the PS2 appears to be running neck and neck with the Microsoft Xbox 360 for second choice.

McNealy said investors and game makers tempered their forecasts for the PS3s since initial numbers fell short. He added that the PS3 will likely remain scarce through the June quarter.

“They have to launch in Europe, and they’re stretched,” said McNealy.

Wii shortages could ease in the March quarter, he said.

Read more: Fox News

According to Sony’s VP of Technology, Paul Holman, there will be a PS4, only, not until at least 2010. Contrary to popular belief Sony aren’t giving up on gaming hardware after the PS3, as many would hope. Among some of the revelations from Holman was Sony’s plans on adding more media center capabilities to the hybrid gaming console, while allowing for more third party applications and hardware to be developed, including the possibility of interactive controllers similar to Nintendo’s Wii controller. He also goes on to talk about how powerful the PS3 is, blah blah blah, but didn’t seem to mention at all how Sony is addressing their deadly supply shortages, which are most definitely attributing to their slow start in this generations console war.

Update 1: Journalists rule, bloggers drool!

Read more: PS4 definitely, but after 2010