Access to Amazon Instant Video's streaming library has been a nice perk to signing up for Amazon Prime. But the service was never particularly useful to many customers who like to sit back on their couch and watch stuff on TV rather than stare at a computer screen. Now Amazon has cut a deal with the PS3 that draws it closer to competitors Netflix and Hulu Plus, which both stream on the Wii and Xbox 360 in addition to Sony's console. More »
As we sifted through the mountain of nominations for this year's Worst Company In America tournament, we noticed a trend of readers who cited companies' mandatory binding arbitration clauses as a reason for nominating. And while it's businesses like AT&T and Sony that have made all the headlines for effectively banning class action lawsuits, there are a lot of other WCIA contenders who are forcing customers into signing away their rights. More »
If this particular WCIA bout were a video game, we'd charge you $59.99 to play the most basic version, another $20 or so to play the full version, and then we'd still nickel and dime you for extras... But not before your account data is compromised by hackers. More »
When most electronic devices freeze up and won't restart or turn off, one option is to pull out the battery. But that's not a choice when dealing with Sony's new PlayStation Vita, which has an internal power source you can't access without violating the warranty. When the Vita freezes up, it won't react immediately to button inputs. More »
Welcome to Consumerist's 7th Annual Worst Company In America tournament, where the businesses you nominated face off for a title that none of them will publicly admit to wanting — but which all of them try their hardest to earn. So it's time to fill in the brackets and start another office pool. That is, unless you work at one of the 32 companies competing in the tournament. More »
In its never-ending battle against the used game market, game companies are always coming up with ways to suck the value out of pre-owned merchandise. Sony has apparently slapped games for its Vita handheld with code that makes them stay loyal to the first account on which they were played, not allowing future owners to unlock virtual trophies. But there's a way around Sony's trophy-blocking. More »
You know what makes our day? Helping out whoever we can in a tight spot. Sort of like when Princess Leia is like, "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope," except we are far less Jedi and really, it's up to you to arm yourselves with info in the battle against bad companies. That being said, reader Michelle, you're a great Leia. More »
Sony sent out emails to customers saying it mistakenly charged sales tax on PlayStation Network purchases back in the day, and has refunded the money into their accounts. More »
In the months leading up to the release of the Sony's handheld PlayStation Vita, a number of people pre-ordered a $299 bundle for the 3G version of the device that included a free month of wireless service. But now some of those customers are less than thrilled to find out that that free month is actually the second month of AT&T service. More »
Right now if someone wants to charge you to use their electrical outlet, they need to physically block your access — or keep the outlet turned off — until you fork over some cash. But that could all change in the not-so-distant future. More »
In the wake of customer outrage over a price bump on two of Whitney Houston's greatest hits albums in the United Kingdom iTunes store, mere hours after she passed away last Saturday, Sony is rolling out the obligatory, "sorry we tried to capitalize on a super famous person's death" apology. More »
While fans of Whitney Houston mourned her death, fondly remembering belting her tunes into hairbrushes in bedrooms everywhere, Sony Music appears to be primed and ready to make a big stack of cash off our nostalgic appreciation, hiking up the price of her greatest hits album hours after her demise on Saturday. More »
Due out Feb. 22, Sony's PlayStation Vita handheld can't play physical games from its predecessor, the PSP, because the Vita lacks a disc drive. But many of the PSP's downloadable games will work on the Vita, and you can transfer them over via a relatively simple — if time-consuming — practice. More »
Angling to get in on the microtransaction gaming action that's all the rage online and on mobile devices, Sony and a game developer are reportedly hammering out policies to allow games to nickel and dime players to a greater extent. More »
Several manufacturers are showing off so-called 4K technology — which promises TV pictures at four times the top resolution of current HD — at the Consumer Electronics Show, including Sony, which expects to have a 4K projector on the market in a few weeks, for $25,000. Assuming you have $25K burning a hole in your pocket, and a vacant wall in your home theater, should you rush out and buy one? More »
Carolyn bought a Sony Blu-ray player for her husband for Christmas. The player's box boasted of its streaming capabilities, but to use them, she would need to purchase a separate wireless adapter. No problem - she picked up an inexpensive one at the store and gave that to her husband as well. She missed one detail: the only compatible adapter must be ordered directly from Sony, and costs $75. Sometimes, great holiday season electronics deals aren't what they seem at first glance. More »
Due out in February, the PlayStation Vita starts at $250, but those who would like to be able to save their games will need a proprietary memory card that isn't included with the device. Unlike Sony's last handheld, the PSP — which accepted relatively cheap run-of-the-mill memory sticks, the Vita demands special memory sticks that range from $20 to $100. More »
As watching movies online — legally — becomes more popular, discs are gradually moving to the wayside. Sony is helping things along in this direction by announcing it will offer Moneyball online Dec. 22, 19 days before it hits shelves on Blu-ray and DVD. Indie films often get this sort of treatment, but it's rare that you see a major studio film take the increasingly popular distribution plan. More »
Not content to let the likes of Netflix and Xbox pass it by in the realm of TV streaming, Sony is reportedly trying to swing deals with major networks in order to secure rights to programming. The idea seems to be to turn PlayStation 3s and Sony's internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players into competitors against cable boxes and satellite receivers. More »
Sony currently lets you store downloaded games on a total of five PS3s or PSPs, but it's cutting back on those limits. Starting Nov. 18, you'll only be able to store a game on two PS3s or two PSPs. Some games, such as PlayStation 1 classics and PSP Minis, are playable on both systems, and you can play those on two PS3s and two PSPs each. More »
Jonathan has a Sony Rewards credit card with Capital One, and tried to use his accumulated points to buy an AV receiver, Sony's "deal of the week," from the rewards site. There's a special price this week for members, only 24,000 points. Great! Jonathan has that many points! Only the site won't let him (or anyone) buy the item for the advertised sale price. More »
The Sony Dream Machine isn't an iconic, distinctive product like the iMac or the Dyson bladeless fan. It is, however, ubiquitous: if you've never owned at least one, you've surely stayed in a hotel or guest room equipped with one. They've been on the market for 30 years or so, and have come equipped with FM dials, tape decks, CD players, and iPod docks. Now Sony is discontinuing the long-lived, diverse brand with the evocative and ironic name. More »
Headlines are blaring about the 1.6 million 40" Sony Bravia TVs getting recalled for fire and smoke risk, but they're overlooking a key fact. The recalled models were only sold in Japan. No recall has been issued in America. However, there are 400,000 models that were sold in the US that contain the same component that prompted the Japan recall. Here are the Sony Bravia TV model numbers you should check to see if you have. More »
Out to swipe some profits from the used video game machine, some publishers have moved toward packing new games with codes that unlock online features and selling the codes to those who buy the games used. Sony is going all-in on the tactic, announcing all games it publishes, starting with next month's Uncharted 3, will be stuck with online passes. More »
In case you thought that part of that higher ticket price you pay for seeing a 3-D movie goes to pay for the glasses required to see the often poorly done, post-production 3-D effects, you're mistaken. It's the studios behind these big-budget cash-ins that have been footing the bill, but that could all change in the next year. More »
A man was waiting for Sony to send him a box and a shipping label so he could send his laptop off for repair. Instead, he got sent broken computers from seven other Sony customers. More »
Devices with internal disc drives that suck and spit out your circular entertainment are fantastic until someone (let's call her 2-year-old Emma) comes along and renders it (let's call it a PS3) useless by stuffing it with multiple discs. No matter how much you curse at the device or pound on the eject button, the discs will stay stuck until you either send the console in for repair or work some magic. More »
DirecTV's Sunday Ticket To Go is a service for football fans who can't have or don't want a satellite dish bolted to the side of their house. It streams Sunday afternoon out-of-market football games to computers, mobile devices, and as of this week, to the Sony Playstation 3. At $340 for the season, it's not cheap, but football fans love it anyway. The service's Playstation debut on Sunday didn't work all that well for most customers, and didn't work for Edward at all. He called for a refund, which was issued, then canceled. Instead of a refund to his credit card, he and other users will receive a store credit. For $25. To the Playstation Network store. "As if that is somehow comparable!" he fumed to Consumerist. More »
DirecTV is taking strides to open up its NFL Sunday Ticket package, which lets viewers watch games not televised in their home markets. This season, non-DirecTV subscribing PlayStation 3 owners can access the service through an app for $340. The package includes the RedZone channel, which switches through different games between plays throughout the day. More »
John doesn't exactly have much love in heart for the people at Sony right now. He spent thousands of dollars on a laptop that broke after only three months. Then, he says, someone at the Sony store did further damage — and passed the repair bill on to him, but the absolute last straw is that his laptop still hasn't been fixed in almost eight months. More »
Aaron's Sony VAIO has failed a few times too many. He faithfully sent it back for repair or had a technician visit his home four times, believing Sony's promise that the repairs would fix the issue. The last time, it failed during finals week at his college on the East Coast. Sony's repair depot kept the machine for a month, yet the issue still wasn't fixed for good. The laptop is now out of warranty, but Aaron had the law on his side. He launched an executive e-mail carpet bomb to some Sony contacts, copying Consumerist. The next day, he heard back from two different people at Sony, offering him a new machine comparable to the one that had failed him. More »
To help calm the nerves of users whose personal information was swiped during the PlayStation Network outage, Sony offered a year of free identity theft protection through Debix's AllClear ID PLUS program. The deadline to register was set to expire June 28, but Sony has extended it through the end of the day July 31. More »
A functioning touchscreen is an important feature of a touchscreen computer. Yet the Sony VAIO desktop that Frank purchased at a Microsoft store and had shipped to his home on the other side of the country had a faulty touchscreen. Since he was on vacation when purchasing the computer, It was too late for a store return, so he had to deal with Sony. They very helpfully sent someone to his home to fix the computer, but the technician instead broke his VAIO even more, then didn't show up for the return visit where he was supposed to actually fix the darn thing. More »
In case you were trying to watch Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo streaming on Netflix and you were denied, it's because Netflix and Starz, the pay TV distributor for Sony, are having a "temporary contract issue." More »
With hit after hit coming on a regular basis it can be hard to keep track of whether Sony has been hacked this week or not, and it's easy to tune out. Thankfully, a simple new service has stepped in to make it a lot easier to find out if Sony has been hacked recently. It's called HasSonyBeenHackedThisWeek.com. More »
Sony's marathon E3 press conference Monday, which I attended, was a roller coaster of surreal announcements and pronouncements by the company. It started with Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO Jack Tretton offering a profuse apology for the PlayStation Network outage and data breach, and just got more awkward from there. More »
Every year before the E3 video game summit launches, announcements that were meant to be held back for press conferences slip into news reports. This year's event, which officially kicks off Tuesday but really starts today with a slew of press events, is expected to showcase at least two new game machines: Sony's PSP followup, code-named Next Generation Portable, and Nintendo's high-def successor to the Wii, code-named Project Cafe. More »
Sony's troubles with hackers continue. Now that the company has recovered from the PlayStation Network outage and lengthy rebuilding process, hackers claim to have stolen and posted email addresses and passwords from 50,000 Sony customers on the Sony Pictures and Sony BMG sites. More »
Sony managed to patch some key parts of its downed PlayStation Network more than two weeks ago, but some functions — such as the ability to buy and download previously purchased games — are still missing. More »
To make PlayStation Network and Qriocity users feel more comfortable following the network outage and data breach, Sony promised a year of identity theft protection. More »
Sony got hacked. Again. In three different countries. The music giant confirmed that it had to shut down its Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications shopping site in Canada after thieves broke in and stole personal information of about 2,000 customers. More »
Sony's infamous PlayStation Network outage and data breach will carry a hefty price tag for the company, costing it $171 million to rebuild in the fiscal year ending March of next year. More »
Although the Sony PlayStation Network is now back online, the entertainment giant seems to be a prime target for hackers: This time, personal data from an unknown number of Sony customers on its Greek website, SonyMusic.gr, has been stolen—and exposed online. More »
After reports circulated that some older PS3 consoles were overheating while playing L.A. Noire and updated with the latest firmware, Sony and L.A. Noire publisher Rockstar Games put out a joint statement declaring neither the game nor the firmware contribute to overheating consoles. More »
Sony's run of bad luck continues. Following the three-weeks-and-change PlayStation Network outage and accompanying data breach, Sony dealt with potentially compromised PSN website logins and reports of systems overheating when playing a popular new game. More »
PlayStation fans, take heart. Your need to game on the run could be satisfied on May 26, the U.S. launch date for Sony's Xperia Play smart phone—a.k.a. the Playstation Phone. More »
Sony CEO Howard Stringer lashed out at those who complained that the company waited too long to notify customers of its PlayStation Network data breach. More »
As an apologetic gift to gamers who suffered Sony's recently concluded PlayStation Network outage and accompanying data breach, Sony will offer players a maximum of four downloadable games — two for PS3 owners and two for those with PSPs. The games come from pre-selected fields of five games for the PS3 and four for the PSP. More »
If it seems like it's been a painful eternity since the Sony PlayStation network went down, well, that's because it has been a frustrating few weeks for customers. Relief is nigh, however, oh ye hankering consumers, as the announcement you've been waiting for has come: The process of reinstating the PSN has started. More »
Sony's PlayStation Network has been down for more than three weeks, during which the company hasn't been able to definitively state whether or not users' credit card information was compromised. But in a letter sent to game publishers, Sony writes that it's seen no proof that such data was hacked. More »
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller has come up with a new tactic to push companies like Sony to disclose hack attacks and data security breaches more promptly: He's asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to require companies to treat attacks as time-sensitive information that must be provided to investors. More »
Remember when Sony said its downed PlayStation Network would be back up in some form sometime last week? That didn't happen, and now that the outage nears the start of its fourth week, Sony is astutely getting more vague in its promises. More »
Contradicting a security expert's statement that Sony's PlayStation Network security software was obsolete months before it was shredded by hackers, the electronics giant says its defenses were indeed up to snuff. More »
Some fun (no, not really) potential aftershocks of the Sony Playstation Network breach: The price of buying a stolen credit card number could drop from $5-$10 per to $1-$2 if the hackers flood the market with the 2.2 million credit cards they claim to have access to... More »
What should yo do if you're a victim of Sony's recent security breaches — or of similar data leaks at other security-challenged-companies? Our clever cousins at Consumer Reports have come up with a set of tips to help you weather the post-hack storm. Top of the list: Accept free credit-monitoring services that the company offers to its customers, but don't count on them to catch everything. More »
To regain the confidence of customers burned by its infamous PlayStation Network outage and data breach, Sony is offering U.S. users a year's subscription to an identity theft prevention service. More »
In congressional testimony this morning, Dr. Gene Spafford of Purdue University said that Sony was using outdated software on its servers — and knew about it months in advance of the recent security breaches that allowed hackers to get private information from over 100 million user accounts. More »
As if it wasn't bad enough that 10 million credit card numbers may be at risk due to a hacker's takedown of PlayStation Network, Sony is also facing a data hemorrhage on another front. Sony Online Entertainment — maker of EverQuest — confirmed another data breach has left 12,700 non-U.S. credit card numbers and 10,700 bank account numbers exposed. More »
At a press conference in Tokyo over the weekend, executives for Sony issued a public apology for the ongoing PlayStation Network outage and admitted that upwards of 10 million users' credit card information could possibly have been breached. More »
Earlier this week, Sony warned users of its PlayStation Network that account info for millions of customers had been swiped by hackers. The company downplayed the risk that credit card numbers could be among that stolen info, saying that "while there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility." Now, it looks like it might be time to rule it in. Hackers are boasting that they have over two million credit-card numbers belonging to Sony customers. More »
What sort of thank you/I'm sorry gift do you get for 77 million account holders whose private info you may have leaked? That's the conundrum Sony is facing. More »
Sony is hard at work planning its rebound from the debacle that's left the PlayStation Network paralyzed for more than a week and caused millions of users' private data to be exposed. More »
Sony ignited a firestorm Tuesday when it revealed that its week-long-and-counting PlayStation Network outage was caused by one or more hackers who may have swiped users' personal information, including credit card numbers. More »
Sony's early bid for a high seed in next year's Worst Company tournament continues, as does the mass outage of its PlayStation Network. Yesterday, the company admitted that it wasn't sure if users' credit card info was compromised by whatever evil forces hacked the system, but now Sony has slightly upgraded that uncertainty by saying that credit card info may have been leaked. More »
Sony continues to deal with the fallout of its huge PlayStation Network outage, which has not only left 75 million users without access, but which also may have compromised users' credit card information. More »
Offering less-than-sincere condolences for a competitor's misfortune, a Microsoft spokesperson publicly hoped the ongoing PlayStation Network outage would lead to more action on Xbox Live. More »
It seems it's too early to read the PSP Go its last rites. Reports that the handheld video game device was going out of production were true only for Japan and Europe, because Sony said it will still produce the system for sale in the U.S. More »
It's been a rough month for the PlayStation Network, which buckled under attacks from hackers earlier this month, and now has gone down again for an extended period. More »
From the very start, Sony's PSP Go looked like a non-starter. The handheld game machine cost more than previous PSPs, lacked the ability to play disc-based games and struggled to get retailers to stock it. More »
Sony's Itchy and Scratchy-esque tangle with an alleged hacker and his supporters has finally reached its apparent end. The parties agreed to an out-of-court settlement with an injunction that bans the man who took credit for jailbreaking the PlayStation 3 from distributing the offending code. More »
The lawyer-neutered, ultra-conservative ritual of corporate interviews could sure use some more WWE-style smack talking, and Sony Computer Entertainment of America president and CEO Jack Tretton provided, delivering a slew of "oh no he didn't" barbs aimed at Nintendo in an interview with Fortune. More »
Sony, which plans to release a follow-up to the PSP (codename: NGP) near the end of the year, has its wires crossed over whether or not last month's earthquake and tsunami will affect the product's launch. More »
Hackers who claimed responsibility for taking down Sony's PlayStation Network and attacking other Sony sites earlier this week say they have reconsidered their methods and will stop attacking PSN "at this time." More »
In an episode reportedly linked to Sony's attempts to take down the alleged hacker who decimated the PS3's security, a group of hackers reportedly crippled the PlayStation Network and several Sony-related cites. More »
If you own a PS3 or Roku and were itching to rent Ghostbusters or A Few Good Men, hold off on adding them to the Netflix queue. Crackle, Sony's video streaming service, will pump the movies — which aren't available on Netflix streaming — to your TV for free. More »
We were going to buy tickets to this Sweet 16 battle, but Ticketmaster tried to charge us twice the face value for printing the tickets at home. And then we looked into watching the online stream, except our computer won't work properly since Sony's copy-protection software exposed it to malware. More »
After eight days and 16 first round battles, the WCIA steel cage is littered with the bones of those companies not crappy enough to continue on in the tournament. But the thrill of victory is fleeting for the remaining combatants, all of whom must square off again if they hope of crowning themselves the Worst Company In America! More »
Sony's Javert-like quest to legally punish a hacker accused of jailbreaking the PS3 continues to take soap opera-like turns, with the company accusing him of fleeing for South America and refusing to turn in key evidence, the latter claim which his lawyer denies. More »
Sony inserted a safe mode into PS3s, allowing determined gamers to take a crack at fixing their broken consoles before making phone calls of shame to the customer service department to schedule repairs. More »
Here's an interesting bout featuring not one, but two crippled combatants. One hobbled by shoddy electronics and the other shackled by leaden copyright protection software. More »
In it's all-out legal quest to stomp an alleged hacker who released a PS3 jailbreak, Sony continues to seem to get whatever information it wants via legal channels. After being allowed to collect the IP addresses of anyone who visited the alleged hacker's site, Sony has now been given the go-ahead from a federal magistrate to collect the man's PayPal records. More »
For the sixth year in a row, we asked Consumerist readers to send us their nominations for our Worst Company In America tournament. And this year's response was the greatest by far. More »
Following through on a promise made in February, Sony released a PS3 firmware update that lets members of its pay service, PlayStation Plus, save data on cloud servers, negating the need for monstrous hard drives to contain game saves. More »
Two new studies may provide some ammo for kids that want to get more time in front of the Wii or Kinect. According to researchers at Brigham Young University and University of Massachusetts, "exergaming" for 10 minutes can result in a workout as stimulating as walking three miles on a treadmill. More »
In its ongoing quest to neutralize the alleged hackers who decimated the PS3's security, Sony won the legal right to track down the IP address of anyone who visited a site on which the PS3 jailbreak was posted. More »
Nick is stationed in Germany with the U.S. Air Force. After a long day of serving his country, he likes to play Xbox. But online play is difficult for military gamers serving abroad because of the way that payment systems at Microsoft and Sony are set up. For those whose credit card billing address is their APO address, the system just won't accept their addresses and go through. Can't anyone help the fine, brave gamers of the military? More »
A video game console may seem like a reasonably inexpensive entertainment proposition at first glance, but it actually becomes a black hole of disposable income, gobbling up your funds to purchase accessories, memberships, extra controllers, downloadable content and games. More »
Stepping up its war on hackers, Sony is talking tough to those who would break down the PlayStation 3 as though it were the Cleveland Cavaliers' defense. More »
If you thought you might pick up an Xperia Play next month, transfer any digital games you've downloaded onto your new new phone and ditch your PSP, you'll have to change your plans. More »
"Kevin Butler" is the fictional Sony VP who is the face of its recent PlayStation ads, so of course he has a Twitter account. It looks like whoever is running the account hasn't been reading the news much. When a Twitter user tweeted at him the code used to jailbreak PS3's, the entity misinterpreted the series of letters and numbers and made a Battleship joke, retweeting the code in the process, reports Engadget. This is ironic because Sony has been cracking down with legal threats and attacks on anyone they can find disseminating the jailbreak information. I wonder if Kevin Butler will be getting one of these C&D's... More »
First Sony went after alleged PS3 hackers who broke down the console's firmware, opening it up to gamers to run pirated, copied and unlicensed games. Now it wants information on those who posted details of the hack online, even though they had no hand in its creation. More »
Sony really, really wants people to start playing its games on new handheld devices. After announcing a follow-up to the PSP and revealing it will make PlayStation games available on Android phones, it's finally revealed that it's going to unveil the long-rumored PlayStation Phone. More »
From time to time at Consumerist we like to take a look back at comically antiquated ads from the long-ago past, gawking at their abruptness and racial insensitivity. But thanks to the magic of Sony and its colossal failure in an attempt to be "edgy" and "viral" while marketing the PSP, we need only look back to 2004-2006 to bask in the glory of badvertising. More »
Sony has struggled to develop good reasons for players to subscribe to its premium PlayStation Plus service, but may have an ace up its sleeve to make Plus worthwhile. More »
The battle over the e-book market has just gotten a little nastier. According to Sony, Apple is now telling some application developers that they can not create apps for the iPad and iPhone that would allow users to purchase content — or even be able to access content — that isn't sold through its App Store. More »
Nintendo has a stranglehold on handheld gaming and Apple dominates mobile phone games, but Sony is fighting back hard on both fronts, releasing a flurry of pint-sized gaming announcements Thursday. More »
Three hundred people in New Jersey are losing their jobs, and it's all our fault. Enough consumers prefer to buy digital downloads (when we buy music at all) that Sony is closing down their Pitman, NJ CD factory at the end of March. More »
Offering up more evidence that the PS3 truly does do everything, the console will allow viewers to rent a downloadable edition of Spots Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue. More »
Here at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, just about everyone is showing off 3D TVs. But at Sony's oversized press conference on the eve of the big expo, the company went far beyond TVs, hyping up everything from 3D cameras and handicams to laptops and self-contained 3D headsets. More »
Chris's 3D television was supposed to come with a voucher from Sony for four free PlayStation Network games. It didn't. Now he's stuck in that rarest of situations: a problem involving multiple companies where Best Buy is the most helpful and cooperative. More »
Alex says a firmware update downgraded his PlayStation 3 into an expensive paperweight, and when he asked Sony to repair his console, he was told he'd have to pay a repair fee. More »
Straining to counter Microsoft's inclusion of ESPN 3 on the Xbox 360, Sony is piling on video streaming apps at a heavy clip, adding pay-as-you-go streaming service Vudu to its stable of Hulu Plus and NHL GameCenter Live. More »
Picking the low-hanging fruit of the pro sports world, Sony has locked down a way to let owners watch NHL games on TV without having to find the Versus channel in the listings. More »
Back in August, Michael tried to do his co-worker a favor by guiding him through Sony's warranty repair, but did him no favors because the the repair attempt ended up breaking the computer in a different way. The computer has since fallen out of the warranty window but apparently is still in the long, winding path toward redemption. More »
After restricting Hulu Plus — Hulu's pay-to-play movie and TV streaming offering — to members of Sony's paid PlayStation Plus service, Sony has decided to tear down that pay wall and let non-paying PlayStation Network members in on the action. More »
Love your PSP, but can't stand Apple fans gloating that their iPhone can play games and make phone calls? Well, if this Engadget photo is any indication, you're about to share in the fun of long-term contracts, high monthly fees, and random text messages interrupting your gameplay! More »
Yesterday the Internet seemed to be stepping over itself to break the news that the Sony Walkman — the handheld icon of the mix-tape era — had finally died a quiet death. Only problem is... that's not exactly true. More »
Shaun White Skateboarding is coming out on Xbox 360 and Wii tomorrow, and was supposed to also hit the PS3 as well, but a last-minute snafu caused Sony to recall the discs. More »
In what could be a frivolous lawsuit that goes nowhere, but may make musical artists a little gun shy about pictures they co-opt onto album covers, a former NASA astronaut is suing Dido over her use of an iconic 1984 photo of him doing his spaceman thing for her album Safe Trip Home. More »
All Forrest wants to do is sign up for a year's worth of Sony's paid PlayStation Plus plan, which gives customers bonus features above and beyond the free service. He says customer service reps are forcing him to stick with a less cost-effective 3-month plan, which he accidentally bought due to an unintended auto-renewal. More »
Realizing that rampant movie piracy has as much to do with the way consumers want to watch a film with their unwillingness to pay for it, some home video studios include codes to transfer digital copies of the films along with Blu-rays. More »
There was a time when many of us got our videos at Blockbuster after shopping for a Sony Discman at Sears, all while talking on our Motorola phone. All of these companies have had their glory days, but now they're on the U.S. News & World Report's list of 10 Companies That Have Lost Their Edge. More »
Since Microsoft made Sony's 120-gigabyte PlayStation 3 hard drive seem puny by unleashing a 250gb slim model in June, Sony is stepping up with 160gb and 320gb models due out later this year. More »
Sony Ericsson has apparently got a heck of a digital rabbit inside its magic hat. Engadget reports the company is set to introduce a PlayStation phone, which will lack a keyboard but have a small touch pad in addition to controls much like that of a PSP Go. More »
Chris says he sent his broken PS3 to Sony, which sent it back sans the upgraded hard drive he'd installed, claiming Chris had sent the console to them that way. He fought the callous treatment and received a consolation prize: A game the CSR semi-suggested he could sell to help pay for a replacement drive. More »
Remember when e-readers like the Kindle came out and everyone got all excited and companies jumped in to copy them and make their own e-readers? Yeah, turns out that wasn't such a good idea. Seems if you're not Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Sony, your e-reader model won't survive the onslaught of tablets like the iPad. More »
Many a video game character begins his story with amnesia, and the malady has befallen Chris's real-life PS3. He sent his system in with an upgraded hard drive he'd installed because he was told he had to do so and even made a special note that he'd need the drive back. More »
Kotaku snapped this shot from Sony's holiday catalog, which offers a compare-and-contrast feature chart that proclaims its upcoming Move motion controller — due out in September — is profoundly superior to Microsoft's Kinect and Wii's controllers. More »
Since November, PS3 users have had to lug a special disc into their machines in order to stream Netflix. But during an earnings call Wednesday, CEO Reed Hastings announced the disc will be rendered obsolete by software within the next few months. This will put the PS3 on par with the Xbox 360 for disc-less Netflix streaming. More »
It's always an adventure when Sony, or most any company for that matter, updates its terms of service. Sony dropped a whopper recently, notifying gamers that 3D games could pose health risks. If your Super Stardust HD wingman is 6 years old or younger, Sony recommends you schedule a visit with the doctor to clear him for 3D gaming. More »
It seemed odd last week that Sony was apparently pulling a Microsoft and planning to make gamers subscribe to its premium service for the privilege of connecting to Hulu Plus. Reports that Sony was making the move were unconfirmed, and it turns out, only half-true. More »
With Sony releasing 3D-capable games for the PS3 and Nintendo readying its 3DS, it would seem the video game world is trying something new and innovative. Not so. As those with long memories of pathetic game products from the past will remember, the industry has danced with the third dimension for decades. More »
Tech bloggers who dug through some hidden text on Hulu's page announcing pay service HuluPlus discovered unwelcome news for PS3 owners. The text indicates Sony plans on reserving HuluPlus access for those who sign up for its $50-a-year PlayStation Plus online service. The probable move, for now unconfirmed by Sony, falls in line with Microsoft's decree that only paying Xbox Live Gold members will be able to access HuluPlus. More »
Generally speaking, laptops get hot, or at least very warm. You pack all that computing power into a slim case with minimal exhaust and it's bound to happen. But Sony says that some of its popular Vaio Laptops were getting so hot they presented a potential burn hazard to users. More »
Sony unveiled the specifics of its Xbox Live-like PlayStation Plus program on its PlayStation Blog, revealing an underwhelming set of features for the $50 annual fee. Bear in mind that Sony already gives away online play — something Microsoft charges for. More »
Kevin is big enough of a man to admit he needs to get his Lilith Fair on. He was so pscyhed about getting his tickets as early as possible that he pre-ordered a Sarah McLachlan CD just to get a pre-sale concert code that gave him access to early tickets. More »
Sony's two biggest announcements at video game summit E3 were of copycat efforts. By the end of the month the PS3 will start PlayStation Plus, a $50-a-year tier of its currently free online service that gives gamers a grab bag of free downloads and the ability to talk with other players online regardless of what game their playing — provided they're also PlayStation Plus subscribers. It's the company's answer to pay-to-play Xbox Live. The first three months of PlayStation Plus are free. More »
Probably the best thing about old PlayStation games that are now downloadable on the PlayStation Network is that you can play them on PS3s as well as PSP. More »
Welcome to the future, which sadly is lacking in jetpacks, Cubs World Series titles and robot maids but does at least have 3D gaming, although it requires a special, expensive TV and dorky glasses. As of today the PS3 supports 3D in three downloadable games: Wipeout HD, Super Stardust HD and Pain. You can also nerd it up by playing the free MotorStorm Pacific Rift demo in 3D. More »
Patrick writes that he bought a used Playstation 3 on Craigslist, which Sony has banned from the Playstation Network forever. Why? Sony can't tell him. Will the console ever be allowed back on the Playstation Network? Nope. Even with the change of ownership? Nope. Funny how the seller forgot to tell Patrick this. More »
In addition to rotting your brain, turning you into a social outcast and giving you carpal tunnel syndrome, video games also trash your back, according to a Cal State Bakersfield study. The subjects it studied got lazier and lazier as they played until they were slouching, button-mashing hunchbacks. More »
Citing a swirl of whispers around the video game media world, 1Up reports Sony is set to announce PSN+, which will shake down gamers for $5 to $10 a month for perks such as cross-game voice chat, free play of the first hour of downloadable games and access to a rotating list of downloadable games. Online play should remain free for non PSN+ members, unlike Xbox Live. More »
HBO is putting its shows up for download on the PlayStation 3, NASDAQ reports, but its $3-per-hourlong episode pricing is even nastier than its monthly charge for cable and satellite subscribers — about $20 on Comcast in my neck of the woods. More »
Gaming blog VG247 sleuthed a couple of tidbits of Sony's plans to grab some more money from loyal customers. According to the site's sources, the company wants to institute a $50 a year premium online service, possibly giving subscribers a downloadable game a month if they pay a monthly fee. Thankfully Sony won't go the Xbox Live route and gouge players to play online. More »
Snoozing in the flickering light of your TV set could be a thing of the past, if you want it to be — a new Sony Bravia model uses facial recognition technology to detect when you're sleeping and turns its display off, The Guardian reports. More »
Apparently the Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York took a look at available cheap computing power and decided that the PS3 with Linux was the way to go — until Sony removed the ability to install the OS with their latest firmware update. Now the Air Force is stuck with a lot of PS3s that can't be repaired if they break — because Sony will update the firmware to remove the option to install Linux. More »
No longer content to let retailers like Best Buy have all the fun — and ludicrous profit margin — Sony is selling extended warranties on its PlayStation products straight from the company. More »
Citing "dwindling demand," Sony announced it's terminating the floppy disk for good. It has already stopped selling the 3.5 inch disks in most areas, and will stop selling them in Japan in March 2011. I have fond memories of copying shareware games to play on my Mom's Macintosh Plus in the 80's. Ah, those were more naive times. Share your floppy disk reminisces in the comments. More »
Sloopydrew says Sony sent him a new terms of service email with some harrowing declarations about the company's rights to screw with your gadgets as it sees fit — sort of a retroactive justification for taking away the ability to install another operating system on the PS3 hard drive. More »
Starting as early as this week, baseball-loving PlayStation 3 owners will be able to watch live streams of almost every Major League Baseball game through MLB.tv... for a price, of course. More »
Sony has taken a page out of the Ubisoft DRM-bungling playbook and required gamers playing the downloadable retro game Final Fight: Double Impact to be online in order to play. According to Joystiq, this must be a Sony-only thing because the game plays fine offline on the Xbox 360. More »
High-Def Digest reports that come June Sony will be sending out a downloadable PS3 update that will give the system the ability to play 3D games for those who are big enough dorks to game with their glasses on their newly purchased 3DTVs. The update won't let the system play 3D Blu-ray films, though. More »
When the PS3 came out in 2006, one of the features that got geeks excited was the system's ability to let you partition the hard drive and install Linux to use the console as a computer. Sony announced on its blog that it's taking the feature away with a firmware update. More »
Sony announced its strange-looking motion controller, the PlayStation Move, today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The game will be compatible with Tiger Woods 11 (insert sex joke here), among other games. More »
With its finger on the pulse of the industry, eagle-eyed Sony developers have uncovered secret knowledge that Apple has released a device that lets you talk on the phone, listen to music and download video games. And as a result, it has decided to give one of its next redesigned PSPs the ability to call, text and email, the Wall Street Journal reports. More »
A court in California recently tossed out a lawsuit filed against Sony claiming that their refusal to make their games more accessible to the visually impaired was in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. More »
In an update to yesterday's global crash of the PlayStation Network that left many PS3 owners unable to use their systems, Sony has confirmed that the problem only affects that non-slim, or "fat," PS3 units and has asked users to hold off on booting up until the problem is resolved. More »
Remember when all you had to do to get a glitchy video game working was pull the cartridge out of the Atari, blow into it, and re-insert? Well, not so much anymore. Millions of PlayStation 3 owners around the world are justifiably irate at the moment because an outage of Sony's PlayStation Network isn't just preventing users from playing online; it's also keeping them from playing offline. More »
In a scene straight from some horrible, technophobic TV movie, a 43-year-old woman is currently the target of a police search in Oklahoma after she allegedly seduced a 14-year-old boy she met while chatting over PlayStation Home. More »
Video game publishers generally aren't too happy that companies such as GameStop reap huge profits from buying and selling used games, and Sony has devised a way to hobble the system from sapping away sales of its newest PSP shooter — slap DRM on the game's online mode. More »
Sony is peeved that we posted an email address for Jack Tretton, President and CEO Sony Computer Entertainment America, the man in charge of Playstation. They even go so far as to intimate that we have the wrong email address and are bad people. Thing is, we got it from a reader who used it successfully on his issue, and we checked it out. Playstation's director of blogopolis massage, Patrick Seybold, writes: More »
Jack Tretton, President and CEO Sony Computer Entertainment America, is standing by and waiting to escalate your backlogged PlayStation complaint! In his spare time, he tests batteries he finds in his kitchen drawer by touching them to his tongue. Connect and start talking hot at jack_tretton@playstation.sony.com! Or his sassy assistant, Amanda Murphy Pedroso at amanda_murphy@playstation.sony.com! UPDATE: Sony is mad that we posted this email address.
Scott has been a longtime and loyal Sony customer, but the company finally disappointed him. He writes that his lovely 46" LCD began to produce strange images on one side of the screen for ten minutes after powering up—not catastrophic, but not acceptable for a $3,000 TV, either. The regular channels of customer service were no help, so Scott took his case to his blog and to Twitter. The result? He heard from executive customer service within hours, and received a new TV for his trouble. More »
Matthew says a firmware upgrade spelled game over for his PS3, then he started a weeks-long battle with Sony to repair it for free. He says Sony made an unauthorized charge on his credit card before finally relenting and taking the charge off, fixing the console and giving him a free game. More »
A theft victim claims he tracked down the guy who made off with his PS3 and several video games by using his PSP to turn on his console from afar and use the camera to snap an image of the bad guy. More »
Earlier this week, I posted about Kate's bad experience getting her Sony Reader upgraded. She hadn't asked for an update, but was told by Sony to send it in, she says. What she got back was a busted Reader that wouldn't work, and a demand from Sony to pay for any repairs.
Happily, over the past two days Sony reps have been in contact with Kate and made things whole again. More »
I'm not usually amused at the customer service horror stories that arrive in our in box, but this one is just so over the top that I can't help but laugh incredulously. The lesson here, which Kate sadly learned for all of us, is if Sony ever asks you out of nowhere to send in your Reader for an update, run away. More »
Motorola handsets, cell phone ringtones, BP propane, Sony VAIO laptops, and the hormone replacement medication Estratest: if you purchased any of these items, you could be eligible for some recently settled class actions. Are you? Well, there's only one way to find out. More »
If Sears isn't happy with its sales figures, it can blame itself by looking at the example of the way it treated Teresa — a frustrated would-be customer who tried and failed several times to buy a PlayStation 3 from the store. More »
—>Sony is barging in on Microsoft's territory, having hammered out a deal to stream Netflix movies over the console just like the Xbox 360 for no additional charge beyond the Netflix membership. More »
—>Robert bought a PlayStation 3, which crapped out him after four months, falling victim to the yellow light of death. He says he contacted Sony to get a repair, but the company insists on charging him $150 plus tax and shipping. This is odd, because Sony offers a one-year warranty on PS3s. More »
—>Remember back when some individuals referred to good things as "da bomb?" They probably didn't have the Executive Email Carpet Bomb in mind, since Consumerist didn't yet exist, but they should have. Here's to re-branding "da bomb" as shorthand for the EECB. Just look at what it did for c0crusader, a spurned Sony laptop customer who used da bomb to shake Sony down for $99. More »
—>Sony announced a while back that it would boost its foundering PSP by allowing gamers to transfer copies of Blu-ray films to the handheld device — but only if they also own a PS3. More »
—>Copyranter spotted this insensitive — to put it mildly — Chilean PS3 Ad that shows a gamer giving a blood transfusion to German field marshal Erwin Rommel while laying in beds whose headboards are adorned with swastikas. More »
—>On Thursday Sony releases the PSP Go, its fourth iteration of the handheld gaming device in as many years. In a move to counter used game sales that conceivably eat away at game publishers' bottom lines, the smaller, lighter, $250 PSP spurns the system's Universal Media Discs in favor of downloads. More »
On a roll from demanding an apology from Sony for insinsuating the country was a haven for scams, Nigeria is demanding an apology from the makers of District 9 for portraying Nigeria as full of gangsters and cannibals. They also want the movie to be re-edited so all the Nigerian gangsters are taken out. More »
—>After Agent Xray purchased The Beatles: Rock Band, he tells us his PlayStation 3 put up a speedbump on Abbey Road by requiring him to download the latest firmware upgrade in order to play the game. More »
—>The advantages of the newly released PS3 Slim over the older models are numerous: smaller size, larger hard drive and faster booting — um, wait, maybe not that last one. More »
—>The history of video game console competitions reads much like that of New York's crime families — you see powerful leaders making bold, risky moves to snuff out their rivals and fierce, tribal alliances that breed clashes between vocal factions. More »
—>Responding to Sony's announcement that a new, cheaper PS3 — as well as a universal price cut to $300 — is imminent, Microsoft is understandably lowering the price of its Xbox 360 Elite to $300, matching the new PS3. More »
—>The Xbox 360 breaks five times as often as its closest failure-prone competitor, the PlayStation 3, a print edition-only Game Informer survey found. More »
—>Reader Martin sent his PS3 in to Sony because a game was stuck in the drive. When he got it back, the game was missing. Where did it go? Sony says there was nothing the drive when they received the unit. Martin is wondering why he would have sent his console in to Sony in the first place if it didn't have a game stuck in it. It is a mystery. More »
Later this month, Sony will start selling a $199 ebook reader through Walmart and other retailers ($100 less than the Kindle). They're also dropping the price of new releases to $9.99, which is what Amazon sells ebook licenses for. [Consumer Reports] More »
—>This generation of game consoles has adapted the PC tradition of updating games with downloadable patches to smooth out glitches and add new features. With an update to its PlayStation 3 hovercraft racer Wipeout HD, Sony added yet another facet to the experience — pre-race commercials that caused longer-than-necessary load times. More »
—>Well well well. New information from an inside source says that the tech threw dirt on the infamous "dusty PS3" to deny the warranty claim because he didn't feel like repairing it. Shocking! His confession, inside. More »
—>Although eMusic is a great service—for a flat monthly fee, you get a set number of downloads per month of DRM-free music tracks—it's about to get better. Or maybe worse, depending on the breadth of your musical tastes. Today eMusic will announce that Sony is adding its back catalog of songs to eMusic's library. The bad news is that eMusic also plans to slightly raise prices and/or drop the number of downloads per month. Even if it works out to between 50-60 cents per track, though, that's still far less than iTunes Music Store or Amazon, and probably the cheapest way to grab music from Sony artists without resorting to piracy. More »
—>You just can't win if you're a gamer these days. Sure, you may like the console you've got, but you know your jealous of the exclusive games and features on the systems you don't have. Even if you own all three current-gen home consoles you feel guilty about neglecting one or two of them. More »
—>Bad news for gamers who are dreaming of an Xbox 361, PlayStation 4 or Wiii. You won't be playing hovercraft Mario Kart or holographic Halo until well into President Palin's first term. More »
—>Ever wonder why some places will engrave your electronics for free? It's so you can't return them. Really. That's the reason. Returns of perfectly good, non-defective merchandise account for 95% of returns and "free engraving" is a cheap, easy way to ensure that that item won't be coming back. More »
—>Is there a difference between a Sony TZ ultraportable laptop and an Asus Eee PC? Reader Ignacio bought Best Buy's accidental damage protection plan for his $2200 Sony TZ laptop, and when he did, indeed, drop it — Best Buy threatened to replace it with a $600 Asus Eee PC, and finally decided to issue a $1200 gift card — the price of a 15" Dell notebook. Fair? More »
—>35,000 laptop batteries from laptops sold from 2004-2006 have been recalled for fire and burn hazards. There have been 17 fires and 2 burns associated with these batteries, so if you've got one, make sure you take care of this issue. More »
—>Sony recalled 440,000 Vaio TZ laptops today due to a faulty wiring issue. The recall affects models made between May 2007 and July 2008 in the VAIO VGN-TZ100 series, VGN-TZ200 series, VGN-TZ300 series and VGN-TZ2000 series. Consumers owning one of these laptops are advised to stop using and call (888) 526-6219 or go to sony.com/support to determine if their computers are included in the recall. More »
—>Reader Adrian's PS3 is broken and since the console was a gift that didn't come with a receipt, Sony is denying warranty coverage. Where it gets tricky is that there's a "manufactured on" sticker on the back of the machine indicating that it is clearly less than a year old — meaning that there's no possible way it could be out of warranty coverage. Adrian tried explaining this concept to Sony, but they weren't interested. No receipt. No warranty. When Adrian threatened to switch to XBOX, Sony's only answer was that "their support wasn't much better." More »
Blu-ray players just aren't selling that well, says Business Week. Maybe that's because Sony has said that prices for players "likely won't fall below $200 until the end of next year—at the earliest." [Business Week] More »
—>Reader Dustin had a question about his PS3, so he emailed Sony. Now he's starting to suspect that they don't actually read the emails people send... More »
—>Certain electronics retailers such as Apple and Sony offer engraving for laptops, cameras and MP3 players. It may seem like a nice service, but it really saves them lots of money. Why? Engraved products can't be returned just because you couldn't figure out how to use the product or because you realized that you spent too much on it and now have to eat peanut butter and corn tortilla sandwiches for a month to avoid defaulting on your student loan. More »
I was wandering around Best Buy yesterday here in Missouri when we came across this. Essentially, the back of this "open box" tagged computer was completely broken off. I realize that this may indeed be the nature of "open box" product, but seriously... 1700 dollars for a computer with this kind of blatant damage? More »
—>After Daniela's SONY laptop was stuck in a warranty repair purgatory for months and a SONY tech screamed at her over the phone accusing her of warranty fraud, her story appeared on The Consumerist. Now she happily writes:
Almost immediately after my article was posted on the consumerist, I received a friendly and extremely apologetic call from a Sony exec. Before even calling me, he had reviewed my case and agreed fully that they were in the wrong. He apologized and offered to have my notebook repaired immediately!
—>Best Buy is offering $50 gift cards to people who bought HD-DVD players before Feb 23. say CNN.
The retailer said it will identify customers through its Reward Zone program, performance service plans and through online purchases and will mail out the gift cards to those individuals by May 1. More »
So, I take in my broken PS3 to Best Buy today, to replace it of course, and they refused to because the serial number on the console is different from that of the box. They accuse me of trying to trade back a different PS3 than the one I bought (I guess there are idiots that do that), in order to get out of paying to have it replaced. This, of course, is total crap because I bought this EXACT PS3 the night before. More »
—>A Toshiba insider claims that the company will abandon its HD-DVD format, yielding the next-generation DVD format war to Sony's competing Blu-ray technology. So now that the war is over you should run out and buy a new Blu-ray player, right? Not so fast. More »
"We've listened to our customers, who are showing a clear preference toward Blu-ray products and movies with their purchases," Gary Severson, head of home entertainment for Wal-Mart's U.S. stores, said in a statement. More »
Best Buy is going to recommend blu-ray players to its customers. [NYT] More »
I bought a Playstation 3 last November, wooed by the thought of 5 free Blu Ray movies. However, last night when I went to fill out the rebate form, I found my wife had thrown away the sales receipt! Doh! I purchased this from Shop Ko using a credit card, but Shop Ko has told me they cannot look up or reprint my receipt. More »
You had an article shortly after the WB exclusivity announcement on the 4th of this month, right? Well, I think this could make for a great follow-up that gives your readers the opportunity to voice their opinion, and hopefully sway the minds of the studio executives who've acted prematurely and stuffed words in the mouths of consumers everywhere. More »
—>The video game industry is on fire! Wooo! Sales are up! Times are good!
In December, Nintendo had its biggest month ever with the hot-selling game system. Holiday shoppers bought 1.4 million Wiis, according to sales data released Thursday by the NPD Group. The Wii's success helped drive the video game industry to a record-setting $17.9 billion in sales, about 43% higher than 2006's $12.5 billion, which was also a record.
Correction: A Panasonic fat cat (and probably also a big wig) wrote in to let us know that Panasonic does indeed make a Blu-ray player that can play 1.1 Blu-ray discs: "The current Panasonic model available (DMP-BD30) is based on version 1.1 (BonusView) and capable of playing Blu-ray discs offering... More »
I'm composing this email with rather mixed emotions. I am, on the one hand almost lightheaded with relief. I am, on the other hand so incredibly angry I'm almost sick. Let me explain. More »
In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet, BusinessWeek.com has learned. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (SNE) and Bertelsmann, will make at least part of its collection available without so-called digital rights management, or DRM, software some time in the first quarter, according to people familiar with the matter. More »
—>13-year-old Brandon Burns thought he'd received a Playstation 3 for Christmas. Sadly for Brandon, the box contained a local phone book and not a PS3. He wasn't upset, just amused. His reaction: More »
—> Remember Sony's cringe-inducing copy protection scheme a couple of years ago, where they secretly installed rootkits on millions of customers' PCs and then pretended it was no big deal? ("Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?" — Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG's President of Global Digital Business.) There's a new article (PDF) about to be published in the Berkely Technology Law Journal called "The Magnificence of the Disaster: Reconstructiong the Sony BMG Rootkit Incident." It's a very detailed and entertaining read that examines the conditions that led Sony BMG "toward a strategy that in retrospect appears obviously and fundamentally misguided." More »
The WSJ Holiday Sales Blog says that sales of the PS3 are picking up while Nintendo struggles to meet the demand for the Wii. Sony's CEO claims that they've been selling 200,000 PS3 units a week in the U.S. since Black Friday. [WSJ Holiday Blog] More »
—>Ars Technica says that Walmart has given an ultimatum to "some of the largest record labels, including Warner Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, to provide more of their respective music catalogs in MP3 format (that is, without DRM) next year." More »
State of the Console Wars: Wii is still winning, Microsoft is second, and Sony is complaining that they're not as far back as Microsoft says they are. [Seattle P-I] More »
—>Around this time last year, computer manufactures were trying to convince people not to wait until Vista came out to buy a new computer. To that end Microsoft devised what was (and still is) considered to be one of the most confusing marketing campaigns ever. More »
—>"While moving to our new house last week a friend who was helping us accidentally spilt beer on my son's DS lite and it stopped working. I knew that his DS was still under warranty, but I also knew that I would not cover physical damage caused by neglect. After checking Nintendo's website, and confirming that spilling liquid on it would not be covered and that I would have to pay for the repair."More »
—>Keep your camera safe and snug in Sony's stylish new TWA/T. The soft leather carrying case is available in brown, black, and red - but not pink. Sony, please hire someone to manage your obscure naming conventions. More »
—>"I just got off the phone With PS3 customer support who kindly informed me that my PS3 is "too dusty" to be replaced under warranty. But won't provide pictures unless they are subpoenaed."More »
There's still no decisive victory in the high-def format wars, but here are the current standings: Sony's Blu-ray outsold HD-DVD in the U.S. by a 2-to-1 margin for the first 3 quarters of 2007, but analysts say the trend could reverse in these last few months due to high-profile titles (like "Transformers") being released in high-def exclusively on HD-DVD. The verdict? It's still either format's game. [Reuters] More »
—>They say there's no new ideas in advertising, but after seeing the latest ripoff routine, where Sony Bravia totally jacked an independent artist team's work for their new ad, we disagree. They do have one idea. It's that it's totally okay to blatantly steal other's work, repackage it, and get away with it. But we've got to wonder, what are these firms thinking? If consumers discover the cut and paste job, isn't that a pretty negative backwash on the client they're supposed to be promoting? Or do they figure, hey, it's just a few thousand internet geeks and artists, they don't have any money anyways, who cares, let's snort some more coke off the copying machine glass? More »
—>More silliness from the RIAA, according to Ars Technica. Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, was called to testify in the case of Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas. More »
I know that you guys have already covered the "format war" to some extent in the past. As I recall your site stated that the "format war" is indeed anti-consumer, which I agree with wholeheartedly. However, I do think that it would be incredibly helpful if you guys would revisit the story, and determine for yourselves which format is the most "consumer friendly." More »
—> Starting next month, you can get your fill of ringles in major stores like Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy. Brainstormed by Sony, the ringle is a sort of souped-up CD single—"one hit and maybe one remix and an older track—and one ringtone, on a CD with a slip-sleeve cover." Sony BMG will release 50 titles in October and November, while Universal will release 10 to 20. Each ringle will cost between $5.98 and $6.98. (Wanna bet which price point the labels will go for?) More »
My colleague came to work waving around a new pair of Sony headphone's he'd bought on the way over, still new in the blister plastic packaging. He was excited because he got such a good deal on them, and tried cutting through the package with a pair of heavy duty scissors. The plastic was unusually strong and was resisting even our most well made scissors (we work in a printing facility, and have lots of types of scissors, all high quality). He switched to the x-acto knife after the scissors were unable to pierce the thick bonded plastic. More »
—>David brought two laptops to Best Buy for repair; neither was ever seen or heard from again. Best Buy sent David's first laptop, a Sony Vaio, back to Sony for repairs. Unable to find the laptop after one month, Best Buy declared it irretrievably lost and offered David an upgraded Vaio for $200. One year later, the second laptop broke. Like the first, it disappeared forever after being dispatched to Sony. David writes:
I just recently started reading The Consumerist, and Lorraine's nightmare with her laptop repair reminded me of my own nightmare of Best Buy completely losing two laptops I sent in for repair, leaving me without any laptop for a total of 4 months, as well as all the data I lost on the first laptop. It all started a little over 3 years ago when a relative bought me a top-of-the-line Sony Vaio at a Best Buy. More »
—>Coca-Cola has come out on top of the "Best Brands" Harris Poll for the first time ever. Sony, the leader for the past 7 years slipped to number 2. More »
—>Blockbuster has announced its decision to exclusively rent Sony Blu-Ray DVDs, much to the dismay of HD DVD owners. According to the AP, the decision comes following a test of both formats at 250 stores. Blockbuster found that consumers were choosing Blu-ray over 70% of the time. More »
—>The EFF is encouraging consumers to write their Senators about a new "spyware" bill that has been, in their words, "massaged by by lobbyists for the software and adware industries." Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing says the bill
"makes it impossible for consumer rights groups to sue DRM companies for putting spyware in their DRM (like Sony did last year, with its rootkit DRM). The irony is that spyware is already illegal, so all that this act does is immunize big media companies that sneak spyware onto your computer."
Spyware is spyware, we think, even if it comes with a Sony/BMG logo. More »
—>Here's the best idea ever: Get a slaughtered goat and use it as a prop at a release party for God of War II. Then, take pictures of the bloody carcass and put them in Official PlayStation Magazine. Oh wait, no. That's not actually a very good idea at all. More »
It seems Acer fell asleep during the whole Sony battery recall thing and is just recalling them now. Well, I do have a couple of affected Acer laptops, and so far the process is painful. The operators on the other end answer the phone in a language unknown to me (though one time I think I heard the operator say South Africa?) though they promptly switched to very understandable English after I spoke. More »
—>Sony's latest bright idea was to issue DVDs with DRM that made them unplayable in their own DVD players. Yes, they're just that committed to you, their valuable customers. Anyhow, they've decided to recall the discs. From IMDb:
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has discovered the source of a problem in their recent DVD releases that prevented them from being played on some players, including some manufactured by the consumer electronics division of Sony itself. The company said the problem was caused by an update of its copy-protection system, which it continually updates in order to derail potential hackers. Among the DVD movies affected were the new James Bond film Casino Royale, The Pursuit of Happyness and Stranger Than Fiction. Sony said that anyone who had purchased one of the discs and has experienced problems playing it may receive a replacement disk free of charge by phoning 800-860-2878.
Reader Mick will be happy about this, as he started a blog about the issue. The recall is probably due in part to his reporting. Good job, Mick! —MEGHANN MARCO More »
—>Format wars are bad for consumers, but it looks like they're not too fun for the industry either. According to recent sales figures from Nielsen VideoScan, the number 10 best selling high-def disc "Babel" sold a whopping 880 copies. That's fewer people than attended our high school. More »
On the day after Thanksgiving, Mr. Sollitto, the chairman and chief executive of Syntax-Brillian, had 32-inch Olevia liquid-crystal display TV sets selling at Circuit City for $475, almost half its regular price. More »
U.S. regulators said Tuesday Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed to reimburse consumers up to $150 for damage to their computers for selling CDs with hidden anti-piracy software. More »
So, if your PS3 breaks and they ask you if you used any third party, non-licensed products with your PS3 say "No!" Otherwise you, my friend, have just voided your warranty. —MEGHANN MARCO More »
—>Since nobody should be allowed to move on from their mistakes, we're holding a knife fight to see who had the "best" flog of 2006. We are pleased to announce... The Floggies. More »
—>We found the Myspace profiles for most of the the marketing douchebags who appear on the PSP flog, pretending that they are kids who want their parents to buy them a PSP for Christmas. More »
We're a day late and a dollar short to this story, but the forces of the internet outed a marketing company working for Sony for creating fake PSP blog. More »
—>Now that your phone is your own, you can unlock it. Depending on the type of phone it is, unlocking can be as simple as getting a code from your phone company, or as difficult as "drilling into a shield over the main circuit board to tap into the right contacts and kicking the phone into a special diagnostic mode to get at the unlocking code." Uh, yeah. Thankfully there are smart people at PC Magazine who can give us the lowdown on the formerly shady practice of unlocking a cell phone.Yay! More »
The recent Copyright Office ruling on unlocking GSM phones puts some much-needed power back in the hands of you, the wireless consumer. This means you can now bring your Cingular phone over to T-Mobile, or vice-versa. You also have the right to switch between prepaid and postpaid service on the same phone. And when you travel abroad, you can pop an international SIM card into your phone for much lower rates.
"The fight between Blu-ray and HD-DVD, reminiscent of the 1980s battle between Betamax and VHS tape formats [is] shaping up as a business disaster for movie studios, electronics companies and retailers that had counted on a robust holiday selling season for the fancy new players - which cost $500 to $1,000 - and movies to play in them. More »
Do you like tacos more than playing video games? Well, you might want to consider this offer from Taco Bell: In exchange for your PS3, Taco Bell is willing to give you a lifetime supply of tacos (read, $12,500 in Taco Bell Bucks). Can one human colon take that much Taco Bell? No man can say. More »
Did Mary get her TV or her PS3? Nope. The staff told her there was a priority list for the PS3, but couldn't tell her if she was on it. Then, after Mary left the store TV-less and PS3-less she got a telephone call from the store manager, who informed her: More »
—>This retard bought three playstations for $900. That's not the in-demand PS3, but the original Playstation, which regularly sells on Ebay for around $20 to $40. More »
—>The understocked PS3 has become the Paris Hilton of the gaming world. Demand is so fever-pitched that several opening day sales have resulted in violence and political defamation. More »
They try to test the heat using a remote thermometer (like the one mentioned in today's Morning Deals) but the temp is so high, the instrument gives an error code. This means the temperature was over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. More »
Monday, Sony voluntarily recalled batteries for all the notebooks listed in the headline, due to risk of fire. If you own one of these laptops, check out this page to see if the recall affects you. More »
My wife just (six weeks later) got her new battery from Apple for her Powerbook G4. The instructions on the printed materials that came with the new battery stated that the old battery had to be drained prior returning. Suggested ways to do this: play a dvd, play a CD or play the Chess game computer vs. computer.
Monday, Sony launched a voluntary recall of laptop batteries for the manufacturer's listed in the headline of this post. If you own a notepad made by one of these people, check this chart to see if you computer is affected. More »
—>Our cottage-cheese-golem brethren over at Kotaku took a break from mouthbreathing and fantasizing about imaginary elves who live in their computer to throw us a couple of links yesterday. Never say we don't return the favor. More »
—>Dell, Apple, and IBM laptops have been catching fire, creating new forms of airport entertainment and providing golden material for bloggers worldwide. Today, we move beyond the Flammable Three, thanks to Toshiba. The company is recalling 340,000 laptop batteries. More »
—>Ever since Windows Genuine Advantage hit, a lot of people have had an outraged looking exclamation point parked in their system tray. Out of the tip, a word balloon bubbles up, warning the user that they're a stinking, no good pirate. More »
—>Most popular stories of the week so far, excluding anything that has to do with AOL. We're gonna play it cool like that, and ignore the top seven results or so. More »
—>Greg over at Perfect Porridge is one of the guys who bought a rootkit-infected album from Sony BMG. He's one of the guys who qualifies for free replacement albums and a small cash settlement for the trouble he's gone through trying to get Sony's sneaky piece of malware off his computer. More »
—>Somehow this escaped our attention, but on May 23, the judge approved the settlement on the Sony rootkit debacle, you remember, the one where they installed crippling programs on your computer to prevent you from copying their precious cds? More »
—>Is it just us, or does it seem like a lot of companies lately are trying to turn a profit by letting us do their jobs for them? We reported earlier today on early indications that fast food is going to be going self-service, and now, companies are trying to get us to create their ads for them. More »
—>With all the furor over DRM lately, CNet asked itself the simple question, "How does DRM affect battery life on your iPod?" As you might expect, the answer is — badly. More »
Earlier, we here at the Consumerist were brave enough to tell you about a recent London subway PSP advertisement that gleefully encouraged Sony customers to kill themselves. We took the opportunity in reporting this to wonder whether or not Sony's next subversive advertisement tact might be to encourage their customers to start killing people. More »
—>Sony might want to start rethinking their subversive ad strategy. First, they came under fire for paying street hooligans to spray paint their logos on private property. And now, in London, they are posting advertisements openly encouraging their customers to kill themselves. More »
—>We're not as hip as our editor, Ben Whatsisface [ed: Popken!]. How could we be? We live in Dublin, for Chrissakes. We don't have a crewcut, we don't have glasses. By extension, we probably don't have his panache with the ladies, nor his disestablishmentarianist fervor. More »
Just in case you purchased a Sony CD "protected" by the rootkit DRM and want to claim your $7.50 worth of mp3s, SonySuit.com has all the available details on registering to take part. We're still particularly interested in the precedent being set here by Sony: they have gone on record stating that $7.50 is the price of two full albums of digital music. And a few mp3s to have your computer's security compromised still seems like a pretty crappy deal. But it's better than nothing and every person taking part in the class action suit is helping send a message to companies trying to implement similarly sleazy DRM schemes. So go check it out, if you've still got that Celine Dion receipt in your wallet. More »
Do you want to get rich by playing the supply-exploit-demand eBay game on the next big video game console? Did you see those ridiculous $1000 X-Box 360 eBay auctions and think, "Man, I wish I could get in on some of that exploitive action?" Your prayers have been answered, because this blog has a remarkably sleazy and delusional article up on the fine art of console reselling. More »
Join us as we read the Business 2.0 (on CNNMoney) piece, '101 Dumbest Moments in Business (2005),' featuring old favorites like the Sony BMG rootkit scandal and Overstock.com's Patrick Byrne's famous "Sith Lord" investor call, as well as new gems like this:Speaking at an ad industry event in... More »
Starting in August 2004, Ancheta turned to a new, more lucrative method to profit from his botnets, prosecutors said. Working with a juvenile in Boca Raton, Fla., whom prosecutors identified by his Internet nickname "SoBe," Ancheta infected more than 400,000 computers. More »
My friends & I really like the Sony Fontopia headphones. The earbuds are soft & comfortable, and block outside noise well enough that you may listen at a civilized, Pete Townshend-sanctioned volume. They come with 4 removable earbuds, a pair each of small & medium. However, no matter how hard I try to be careful, eventually my headphones will wind up at the bottom of my bag with heavy junk thrown on top of them, or they'll get caught on my coat collar, or a dog will chew on them, and with these headphones that means the earbud will get pulled off. And once they're off, man those little suckers are hard to find. More »
It appears the Sony rootkit fiasco may be approaching an end. Techdirt is reporting that the company has settled one of many class action lawsuits, offering three free albums' worth of MP3 downloads or $7.50 plus a single albums' worth of downloads. As a poster on Techdirt points out:
According to Sony, 2 albums' worth of music has an actual value of $7.50. That's $3.75 per album. More »
—>There's an excellent entry up over at Scatterbox detailing Sony's perfidious scum-suckery (ed - penultimate 's' chipperly added because The Consumerist is, at heart, a family publication). First: the spyware and malware they surreptitiously installed on the computers of thousands of people who had actually bothered to buy their CDs; then, vandalizing other people's property so they could tattoo their rainbow corporate swastika in public places on somebody else's dime. These guys are sleazy enough that a mere push would send them in a frictionless glide right across the pit full of jagged glass bottles and honey consumers would like to roll them in. More »
• Confused by the whole 'Sony Rootkit' debacle and don't know which CDs might install malicious software that leaves your PC vulnerable to compromise? Sony BMG has a list of the 50 CDs with the MediaMax DRM, making it easy for you to avoid purchase. You'll just have to get your 'YoungBloodZ' fix elsewhere. More »
As a fledgling best site ever, The Consumerist has had to do a fair amount of soul searching with regard to Digital Rights Management. It's clearly a consumer issue—companies restricting your rights to use a product is our bread and butter—but it's also sort of boring. We've decided to err on the side of pedantry. If the big media companies are still penalizing legitimate consumers, we'll keep pointing out whose products you should avoid. More »
Digital Rights Management (DRM) is, at best, an unnecessary inconvenience. Sometimes we pine for instant gratification and trade away common sense, like when we download music from an online service instead of purchasing a CD. But what if that CD has DRM built-in—DRM that installs the same sort of malicious software used by teenage Russian hackers everywhere (but especially Russia)? More »
