In case you missed all the internets drama here is a quick recap to get you all caught up:

• Pre E3 - Rumors of a $100 PS3 price cut
• E3 - Price cut goes official, original $499 20GB PS3 model is now discontinued
• E3 Thursday - Sony announces discontinuation of the 60GB PS3 model they just cut $100 off of ….

See the problem yet?

OK, It’s late, I’m tired and I am having a difficult time conversing my disoriented thoughts into proper sentences so I will do this in the most simplest of terms:

The PS3 used to come in two packages - $499 (20GB model, no bells and whistles) and $599 (60GB model, bells and whistles included)

The PS3 now comes in two new packages - $499 (60GB model, bells and whistles included) and $599 (80GB model, bells and whistles included)

At the end of July you will have only one choice - the $599 version

Unless another price cut is announced before this holiday season or Sony somehow continues their original two price approach, gamers and Blue Ray enthusiasts will continue to get reamed.

[Thanks BuckF1tches for stirring things up]

After just several years of operation, Sony is finally closing the doors on it’s fledgling digital music distribution service we all knew as Sony Connect. It seems competition was just too much and Sony just had to stop the bleeding. All assets and resources will be absorbed into the Playstation business.

Why did Sony Connect fail? I believe they attempted to emulated the iPod+iTunes model. Unfortunately the experience going from computer to store to music player wasn’t as user friendly. It also had limited content since the Connect store gave preferential treatment to Sony’s own music label. The final vice being Sony Connect existed in the Window’s world, a place where vertically integrated businesses just don’t work.

The Sony MRW62E-S1-171 supports a whopping 17 memory card formats. Compatible with PC’s and Macs, available this month.

• Memory Stick
• Memory Stick Duo
• Memory Stick PRO
• Memory Stick PRO Duo
• MagicGate Memory Stick
• Memory Stick Micro
• CompactFlash
• Microdrive
• SmartMedia
• xD-Picture Card
• SD Memory Card
• SDHC
• miniSD Card
• MultiMediaCard and RS-MMC

Seriously people, we need to get a handle on this. 17 formats is just ridiculous. I’m all for competition but they’re all practically the same, save for different write/read speeds and size. Pretty soon we’ll be seeing 27 memory card reader formats.

Sony has updated their Blu-Ray disc player product lines with a lower-priced bargain player that still supports all the wonderful features of high definition media. Along with the price drop comes the fact that this is now the cheapest Blu-Ray player, as the $499 20GB PS3 has been phased out of existence.

More info inside!
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Oh my, Sony just had to go there and upstage Samsung’s “we made a 260 thousand color flexi-OLED!” with their very own “shut-up, we made a 16 million color flexi-OLED, NOW WHAT!?!”

The screen is made from glass substrate and only .3mm thick. The OLED technology behind it promises ultra battery saving efficiency performing 10 - 20 times better than today’s screens. It’ll be a few years before we see any device sporting it but Motorola had better get crackin’ if they want to keep that “razor thin profile” mantra.

Hit the jump for video
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It’s about friggin’ time! The brand spanking new firmware 1.80 introduces DVD upscaling to full 1080p not only for movies but for PS2 games as well, YAY!

Other note worthy upgrades are the ability to remotely access your PS3 from your PSP anywhere in the world and support for media playback stored on DLNA enabled devices. Get the download tomorrow!

Sony press release

IBM has announced a cross-company partnership that will combine their IBM mainframes with the beefy cell broadband engine processors from Sony, creating a huge network of computers that can take over the world. At the very least, this coupling will allow game developers and web developers to push servers farther, giving users, consumers, and gamers a new era of online communities (1000 vs 1000 Battlefield anyone?).

As online environments increasingly incorporate aspects of virtual reality — including 3D graphics and lifelike, real-time interaction among many simultaneous users — companies of all types will need a computing platform that can handle a broad spectrum of demanding performance and security requirements,” said Jim Stallings, general manager, IBM System z. “To serve this market, the Cell/B.E. processor is the perfect complement to the mainframe, the only server designed to handle millions of simultaneous users.

The full press release from IBM, copied and cited for your reading pleasure, can be found inside:
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In one fell swoop, Sony has decided to informally admit the utter failure of their ATRAC audio format and hideous SonicStage software. This realization comes in the form of a new Walkman dubbed B100. The B100 mounts like a flash drive and songs can be dragged right onto it. No need to launch any software or convert audio files. Sony plans 1, 2 and 4GB flavors each sporting a single line OLED display, FM radio and support for MP3, WMA and AAC formats

No price yet but expect availability sometime next month. Make it a slider USB nub instead of an easily misplaced cap and they might have a winner here.

[Via ATRACLife]

For those that don’t already know, the PS3 supports Linux, and has its own distribution of Terrasoft’s Yellow Dog Linux as well as capable versions of Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu. On top of these Linux flavors, there is this cool Japanese man’s guide for Debian that helps homebrewers boot their own custom games, or do many other creative things with a Linux live cd.

Sony has been rather open about the use of Linux on the PS3, even assisting Tuxophiles with access to partitioning tools and a boot loader, making the installation of another OS simple and streamlined. All is not well though, as Sony has blocked advanced usage of the nVIDIA RSX chip (which shares its name with an Acura) and Linux users aim to unlock the powerful graphics processor.

Citing fears of home production or usage of games not originally designed for the PS3 coupled with control issues of with the Blu-Ray player, Sony has blocked the GPU with the PS3’s hypervisor. In other words, the platform that allows multiple operating systems to run on the PS3 also treats any OS besides the main one as a guest OS, therefore restricting access to hardware, in this case the nVIDIA RSX chip.

Although internet petitions barely ever work (the last one I ever did was one for re-releasing Timesplitters 2 for the PS2 as an online-capable game), go ahead and help the cause by signing the petition here.

[Via the Inquirer]

ZOMG it’s a giant Sony Clie UX50! No I kid I kid. It’s the DVP-FX850, Sony’s portable DVD player. Although not much about this player is anymore compelling than the bazillion others on the market, you do get an 800 x 480 pixel screen that does that twisting head trick thing almost as well as Linda Blair. If you need numbers, that’s 180º. It pretty compact and only weighs 35 oz. The battery is good enough for 8 hours of nonstop playback (with some minor screen adjustments).

No word yet on pricing but it goes on sale May 1st. Oh and one more thing. It’s Japan only. Question, do people still use portable DVD players?