After the major fuckup over at Sony with the Playstation Network it is good to know that the Playstation Network is probably going to be up really soon. Sony is also planning to compensate all Playstation users with some free things, which is nice of them. Earlier today they released some information and it looks like there will be a free Playstation Plus month trial as well as complimentary downloads. It isn’t clear as to what kind of download are we talking about, but hey at least they are doing something even though the service is free.

Here’s what Sony had to say on this

Complimentary Offering and “Welcome Back” Appreciation Program
While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, the company is committed to helping its customers protect their personal data and will provide a complimentary offering to assist users in enrolling in identity theft protection services and/or similar programs. The implementation will be at a local level and further details will be made available shortly in each region.

The company will also rollout the PlayStation Network and Qriocity “Welcome Back” program, to be offered worldwide, which will be tailored to specific markets to provide our consumers with a selection of service options and premium content as an expression of the company’s appreciation for their patience, support and continued loyalty.

Central components of the “Welcome Back” program will include:

• Each territory will be offering selected PlayStation entertainment content for free download. Specific details of this content will be announced in each region soon.
• All existing PlayStation Network customers will be provided with 30 days free membership in the PlayStation Plus premium service. Current members of PlayStation Plus will receive 30 days free service.
• Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity subscribers (in countries where the service is available) will receive 30 days free service.

Additional “Welcome Back” entertainment and service offerings will be rolled out over the coming weeks as the company returns the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services to the quality standard users have grown to enjoy and strive to exceed those exceptions.

We hope that these downloads are full quality games and not $10 dollar titles, because that would blow. It is cool to tryout Playstation Plus and it will probably do Sony good when it comes to subscribers.

[Playstation Blog]

If you are a Playstation Network user you may end up getting sensitive information stolen from you as it is official the PSN has been hacked. According to the Playstation blog; information such as credit cards, names, emails, passwords, addresses and many other information have been stolen when PSN was attacked last week. Things are looking pretty bad for those hackers as Sony is involving the Feds as well as their own investigation team to get to the bottom of this issue.

This is not good press for Sony as they seemed almost perfect and an intrusion like this one is probably going to give them a bad name. The last thing we want is for Sony to give up on making consoles, because of a few hackers, so we ask you PSN users to be patient with Sony as they are working their butts off to fix this.

Below is an update Questions and Answers from Sony where they tell us everything that’s happening, what we should do and what they are doing to make things better.

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Playstation fanboys out there might be disappointed this year as it seems like the NGP might not be making it to North America, because of the earthquake over in Japan. According to Jack Tretton, The President of  SCEA the NGP will only be released in one region as of now. Although it is unclear of which region will be affected it is likely that we will not see the NGP in North America, however it would be a bad move on Sony to not bring this device to North America in the Holiday season.

[Bloomberg]

Angry Birds is everywhere and recently they made it to Playstation as it is available on the PS3 and PSP. For some reason this game has yet to make it to the Nintendo DS, but who knows what the future has for this game. Now there is a Angry Birds movie and you can see the trailer below. I personally didn’t know what storyline this movie would have, but it does have one. Watch the trailer below!

Not to be a Playstation 3 fanboy, but this PS3 exclusive looks like it may have more potential than it’s predecessor MLB 10. It seems that these games continue to evolve to a more realistic stage and if you are a baseball fan you will probably agree. Check out this really awesome trailer of MLB 11 The Show and check out how great this game is going to look especially now that it will have some Playstation Move Support. There is little information as to if this game will be on the NGP aka the next PSP as well but keep checking as we get that info out to you. In our opinion MLB 12: The Show will probably be on the NGP, but we’ll have to wait and see.

In case you didn’t know, Sony has finally released some awesome screenshots  and videos of what the new Playstation Portable is going to look like plus the specs, which we’ll have below. In getting you guys more information on what to expect from this device, we first want to Analise the device as well as give you our predictions on what we can expect from the new PSP2 entitled the “NGP” to go. We are going to try to keep things positive and we have many good things to say about the PSP2, but we also have to give our critique on it and I know it is too early for us to do this, but hey that is just our opinion.

The original PSP came out back in 2004 in Japan and then in 2005 it was introduced to North America plus other places like in Europe, Asia etc, but were not going to give you PSP history lesson. What we do have to say is that it sold approximately 60 million units since then, which is a great for Sony, but the big question here is: Will the PSP2 do as well as the PSP?  – The answer to that is unknown, but to throw our two cents we feel that it might not do as well as Sony is probably hoping.

The Good!

The PSP 2 is going to be amazing just for the fact that it’s a new device and the technology will be much more updated than the original PSP. The technology seems promising as you will get to run a game like Uncharted on it and if that doesn’t sell it to you, I don’t know what will. The storage capacity is unknown, but well get that to you eventually as it comes. So far what we know about it is that it will have a touchscreen feature similar to smart phones, which means that developers will be making some awesome games in the future now that there going to have a beast like the PSP2. Where the device  gets a chance in the fight with smartphones is that developers that make awesome games like Angry Birds will now get to bring these touch based games on the PSP, which will make it great for casual gamers without loosing that hardcore gamer status.

The Bad!

The original PSP was great for it’s time, but it certainly has been replaced with a much larger fanbase of Smartphone users on the Android Market as well as the Apple iOS that is on the iPhone, iPad, iPods. The Android install base is huge and we are becoming smartphone dependants these days, which is great, but it is also the thing that will kill the Nintendo DS and the PSP or devices of that nature. As consumers we want it all and with the economy as crappy as it is, gamers aren’t going to spend $400 dollars on a PSP2 when they can get an HTC Evo 4G for $150 that has a lot of power and it still works as a phone and GPS.

Overall we will have to wait and see how things shape up for the future we like the idea and as gamers we’ll support it, but Sony has a huge challenge coming when it comes to the PSP2.

Below are the detais on the PSP 2 as well as some screenshots.

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