Hacking the PSP Blog

Harrison pledges more support for Epic

Worldwide Studios Phil Harrison has admitted that Sony didn't initially offer Epic enough support with optimising the Unreal Engine 3 for PS3 - but said the situation has now changed for the better.

Speaking to Game Informer Harrison said, "If we’re honest, we didn’t do enough of a good job supporting them and getting them the tools and technology early enough.

"Also, Epic isn’t a huge company. They don’t have unlimited resource. We have parachuted in some of our SWAT team of super engineers to help them. Specifically, to optimise for SPUs, which are the point of difference that the Cell Processor has."

According to Harrison, the process of optimising the SPUs is already underway - and it will have very positive results for those both creating and playing PS3 games.

"The benefits that it yields to end developers, whether they’re writing exclusive titles or multiplatform titles, is that the performance on PS3 goes up exponentially - and it will make for a much better game experience," he stated.

Ellie Gibson
July 23, 2007

Source: GamesIndustry.biz

PSP sales increase 31% over last year

Sony recently released a statement about NPD sales figures. According to their data, PSP is gaining a lot of momentum, selling 31% more systems this month than last year during the same time. For the month of June, PSP sold an impressive 290,108 units at retail in America, now officially making it the biggest selling PlayStation product that Sony currently sells.

Compare that figure to PS3, which sold 98,469 units last month. The PS2 got close: it sold an impressive 270,763 systems last month. However, it's clear that PSP is gaining a lot more momentum. With the redesign coming in September, we're bound to see sales increase even further later this year.

Andrew Yoon
July 23, 2007

Source: PSP Fanboy

GPS foils Playstation thieves

A band of would-be Playstation-delivery truck thieves in Australia had the rug snatched out from under them when police used the vehicle's built-in GPS to track and locate the stolen goods. The truck, loaded with more than $1 million AUD worth of PS2s, was taken from a freight depot in Sydney that the thieves had broken into. The group of evil-doers would have made off clean, save for the fact that local authorities were able to follow the direction and speed of the truck to the gang's suburban shed, where they had begun unloading the game systems -- clearly they should have picked up a few tips from Best Buy's dastardly villains. When questioned later by police, the leader of the ring was reported to have said, "And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for your meddling GPS!"

Joshua Topolsky
July 23, 2007

Source: Sydney Morning Herald via Engadget