A few days ago, Kaz Hirai was made Sony’s new president and CEO, taking the place of Howard Stringer. He wasted no time in letting everyone know that changes on the horizon that will hopefully save Sony from it’s almost two decades of lows. The official takeover will happen in April, but no time will be wasted twiddling thumbs from the looks of this interview with the Wall Street Journal. (check out the video below)

There are going to be some serious goal changes for Sony, and it’s about time. Especially since they saw a 2 billion dollar loss in the game division a few years back. You know the business model needs to change when you see that you’re a couple billion in the hole. Hirai knows that waiting for things to get better isn’t going to do anyone any good, so he’s going to be moving things around until they improve. In a previous interview he had stated, “I thought turning around the PlayStation business was going to be the toughest challenge of my career, but I guess not.” If he can make Sony better for all of us, then more power to him.

It seems as though not everyone is being a team player, and Hirai intends to change that immediately. Not in the sense of laying anyone off, just trying to get core groups together so that decisions can be made quickly, efficiently, and with everyone’s best interest in mind. The naysayers are likely going to change their minds though, as Hirai stated in his interview:

“I think one of the fundamental things that we need to change at Sony is to become a company that provides a very unique and compelling user experience as opposed to just a company that provides great hardware products. We really need to buckle down and be realistic. I don’t think everybody is on board, but I think people are coming around to the idea that if we don’t turn this around, we could be sitting in some serious trouble.”

For the full interview, go here.

Yikes! Things are not looking good for the new Playstation Vita, which was just released last month in Japan. On December 17th and 18th, the first two days that the Vita was available, roughly 325,000 units were sold. Since then, however, only about 176,000 units were sold, which for those of you doing the math, is just above 50%.

On a weekly basis, it’s looking even worse. Only 18,361 units were sold between January 9th and the 15th, which is over 50% less than the week before when the Vita sold 42,915 units.

However, Sony maintains that it’s too early to worry about if the Vita will fail. Jim Ryan, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President and the CEO, said in an interview with MCV “One of the things we have learned over a long period of time is that whether it is PS1, PS2, PSP or PS3, it is dangerous to the point of impossible to take any experience from the Japanese Market and try and extrapolate it, and propose upon what will happen to in Europe or North America.” In other words, just because it might struggle in one part of the world, it doesn’t mean it will struggle in other parts.

But so far, the facts are saying that the Vita is facing some immense challenges in its first month, and I would venture that if the American and European launch doesn’t go so smoothly, we might not be seeing the Vita for too much longer.

In the recent news dealing with the Stop Online Piracy Act, it seems like Sony is taking a stand in support for the infamous bill. The internet group recently uploaded a video threatening Sony for their stand in the matter, and they made sure to get their point across. This video clearly contains an aggravated threat that the group has turned into a promise on the Sony network.

The message, as clarified by the video is such:

“Hello, SONY.
We are Anonymous.

It has come to the attention of the Anonymous activist community that you have chosen to stand by the Stop Online Piracy Act. This act will halt online businesses and restrict access to many sites for many users. Supporting SOPA is like trying to throw an entire company from off a bridge. Your support to the act is a signed death warrant to SONY Company and Associates. Therefore, yet again, we have decided to destroy your network. We will dismantle your phantom from the internet. Prepare to be extinguished. Justice will be swift, and it will be for the people, whether some like it or not. Sony, you have been warned.

To those doubting our powers. We’ve infiltrated the servers of Bank of America, The United States Department of Defense, The United Nations, and Lockheed Martin. In one day.

For their approval to SOPA, we have also declared that our fury be brought upon the following persons. Justin Bieber. Lady Gaga. Kim Kardashian. and Taylor Swift.

Operation Blackout, engaged.
Operation Mayhem, engaged.
Operation LulzXmas, engaged.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Supporters of SOPA, you should’ve expected us.”

Since the video hit the net, Anonymous has clarified some things a bit more to clear up some confusion. They’ve made it known that if this attack took place, the focus would be on Sony Executives, and not the PlayStation Network. They have no plans on attacking users, taking any credit card information, or any such actions. The plan, as it now appears, is to post sensitive information about the Sony Execs on the net, splash Sony’s site with anti-SOPA propaganda, and to make copyrighted Sony material available online for free.

In recent news, Sony has since dialed back their support for the act, after the threat has been made, which leads us to believe this word from Anonymous has been heeded. Whether this will be enough for the group to call off their mission, we don’t know, but we’ll be keeping watch on the details as they arrive. For now, you can see the original Anonymous video post below.

Whenever a new console launches, one of the most important things to look at is the lineup of games that will be released along side it. Nintendo learned this the hard way when the 3DS came out, as they didn’t have many hot titles. As a result, the sales figures weren’t as high as expected, and the price was dropped relatively quickly.  So how will Sony fair with the Vita early next year?

The company has announced 25 titles that will be launching on February 22nd, and another ten that will hit stores shortly after the handheld. Here is a full list of the announced launch-day titles:

• Army Corps of Hell (Square Enix, Inc.)
• Asphalt Injection (Ubisoft)
• Ben10 Galactic Racing (D3 Publisher of America)
• Blazblue: Continuum Shift Extend (Aksys)
• Dungeon Hunter Alliance (Ubisoft)
• Dynasty Warriors Next (Tecmo Koei America Corporation)
• EA Sports FIFA Soccer (Electronic Arts)
• Escape Plan (SCEA, PSN Only)
• F1 2011 (Codemasters)
• Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational (SCEA)
• Hustle Kings (SCEA, PSN Only)
• Little Deviants (SCEA)
• Lumines Electronic Symphony (Ubisoft)
• Michael Jackson The Experience (Ubisoft)
• ModNation Racers: Road Trip (SCEA)
• Plants vs. Zombies (Sony Online Entertainment, PSN Only)
• Rayman Origins (Ubisoft)
• Shinobido 2: Revenge of Zen (Namco Bandai Games America)
• Super StarDust Delta (SCEA, PSN only)
• Tales of Space: Mutant Blobs (Drinkbox Studios, PSN Only)
• Touch My Katamari (Namco Bandai Games America Inc.)
• Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 (Capcom Entertainment)
• Uncharted: Golden Abyss (SCEA)
• Virtua Tennis 4: World Tour Edition (Sega of America)
• Wipeout 2048 (SCEA)

So far, it’s looking like Sony has a decent lineup of first-party titles, though if the recent launch in Japan is any indication, Sony may have a rough road ahead of them. We’ll just have to wait and see. Also, for those curious, here are the other ten titles that will be releasing a little bit later:

• Gravity Rush (SCEA)
• LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 (Warner Bros. Interactive Ent)
• Disgaea 3:Absence of Detention (NIS America)
• MLB 12 The Show (SCEA)
• Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus (Tecmo Koei America)
• Reality Fighters (SCEA)
• Ridge Racer (Namco Bandai Games America Inc.)
• Silent Hill Book of Memories (Konami)
• Supremacy MMA: Unrestricted (505 Games)
• Unit 13 (SCEA)

Sony made a PlayStation 3D display that went on the shelves on November 13. Only about a month later, it has seen a sale that gives you $100 off the original price at Best Buy. Obviously the economy is not doing so great, so it’s nice to see a decent amount get lopped of something that is expensive.

Does this mean we’re all going to run out and buy the thing? No, likely not. But, seeing as it does have that nifty feature of displaying separate images for two players, it will entice us to do so just a little bit more. For this $300 price, you will also get a pair of 3D glasses, and a copy of MotorStorm Apocalypse.

If you aren’t all about a new display, then you may want to look into the other game deals Best Buy has going. A few examples being the $100 gift card with a 4GB Kinect Bundle, $30 gift card with purchase of a 3DS, and buy two get one free Kinect games. Money is tight this holiday season, so try and spread some cheer at a reasonable price.

If you weren’t excited enough over the Duke Nukem Forever DLC that arrived the other day, then take a look at all of the holiday deals PSN has going on. You can stuff stockings with digital cheer!

Through this promotional ordeal, you can get your mitts on some pretty spiffy game bundles and all sorts of goodies from the top of the PSN performers for a discounted price. The full list of deals is available on the PlayStation Blog, but the video below will give you a snippet of what’s there.

For those of you PlayStation Plus subscribers out there, Marvel pinball is available to play for free. Not to mention a KOF XIII that you can download. The closer it gets to the holidays, the more deals seem to pop up, so keep your eyes peeled.

The software update that has been in the works at Sony is now finally live. This brings the version to 4.0. We’ve seen some awesome tweaks come out of Sony, but none for this update.

The main component features with this update is the software in preparation for the release of the Playstation Vita in Japan. The update was to prepare the PS3 to serve as a content management device to be used alongside the Vita. It will allow Vita users to copy their digital content such as games, music, pictures, and videos back and forth between the Vita and PS3, back up Vita games and save data to the PS3 hard drive, and update your Vita software using the network features of the Playstation 3.

Other small changes pertained to Playstation Plus members. These members now have the option to enable or disable automatic update features on the Playstation 3. These features include game patches, system software, recommended games and videos, and syncing trophy info. The patch also provided new Paystation Network settings for filtering friend requests and messages.

GameStop stores have now started listing the SD memory cards for the upcoming PS Vita handheld. The prices have appeared, and they are lowering the brows of many players out there. If you’re going to shell out the money for the Vita when it arrives, you may want to think about setting back another paycheck in order to pick up one of these memory cards.

According to the retailer, players will be dipping out up to a hundred twenty bucks to own one of the new SD cards, which is almost preposterous. These cards will come out in 3 sizes: the 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB. As for pricing, they’ll run $29.99, $44.99, $69.99, and $119.99 respectively. Isn’t that a touch of insanity?

Don’t rage too much, the prices also mirror the Japanese cards so you’re not getting gouged. With these prices, players are already standing behind purchasing games from retail, as most of them already have. The plan is to grab a small card to save files to and shy away from downloading whole games to the card. Just keep that in mind.

To most of you, reading the title of this post doesn’t cause much distress. However, to others, this is a great big ball of disaster coming quickly in your direction. Sony has some changes coming to their usage policies for the PlayStation Network that will be in effect starting November 18^th.

What’s going to happen is that PS3 and PSP users will only be able to play their games on up to two activated systems. Seeing as this used to be a cap of five, some people are pretty outraged. There is always the question of why you need more than one PS3 in a home, but families and roommates know the answer to that. Can you imagine having 3 kids who are all around the same age, who all want to play a single-player PS3 game at once? Yea, I’d save up for three PS3s too, just to have some quiet for an hour or two.

I’m assuming everything you already have will be grandfathered in on your account, as the PlayStation Blog says the update will not affect game content purchased before November 18^th, but game sharing with four of your best buds is no longer going to happen. I can understand why this is happening, but it does suck for the people that it’s affecting in a negative way. On a happier note, there will be an account management website that you can deactivate your old accounts on via PC, which will be helpful in the least.

Folks over at Paul Gale Network have word in that Sony is planning a big game reveal, but we only know one thing about the game. We don’t know the name of the game, the publisher, or the developer and we don’t have pictures, video, a percent complete, or release date. Sony’s big new item is: Its equivalent of Super Smash Bros! Don’t be all to confident though, because this is just a rumor.

We don’t have many details about this game but the ones we are almost sure of is that the game will be played on a 2D plane like all of the other Super Smash Bros, the style of play is about the same as the other Smash Bros, the game will include maps from other Playstation games, and we have some word on a few possible characters. A couple of the current possible characters are: Kratos, Sly Cooper, Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Fat Princess, Parappa, Sweet Tooth, and Rico from Killzone. Also we know that tons of cool objects ranging from various Playstation games will spawn on the level to make things more interesting.

The levels are rumored to be very large and very colorful. I’m sure anyone who’s enjoyed playing Super Smash Bros in the past will love this new-age rendition of the series. I forgot to mention above that JAMES BOND is also a possible character.