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Sony has new games coming; PS3 price cut expected

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Editor's note: John Gaudiosi covers the videogame industry for Local Tech Wire.

RALEIGH, N.C. - Sony Computer Entertainment America’s hosting its annual retail and publisher conference Destination PlayStation this week, which is taking place in Arizona. As a result, there’s been a lot of news emanating from the desert. There have also been rumors floating around that Sony could cut the price of its PlayStation 3 by $100. The PS3 currently retails for $400.

Sony announced that its free PlayStation Network online community has surpassed 20 million registered users across 55 countries. Sony has sold over 21.3 million PS3s worldwide, which means gamers are taking advantage of the free online gameplay, PlayStation Store, and other services. Sony has had 4 million gamers register for its PlayStation Home virtual world, which is also free. (Microsoft offers its Silver Xbox Live service for free, but requires gamers to pay $50 a year for the Gold membership, which is required to play online games.)

Sony’s PlayStation Store now has over 14,500 pieces of digital content, ranging from exclusive online games like "Flower" and "Ragdoll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic," downloadable versions of UMD titles, game demos and items, to more than 5,900 movies and TV episodes that are available through the Video Delivery Service that launched last July. To date, more than 380 million pieces of content have been downloaded, with total sales exceeding $180 million U.S. dollars.

Sony also is showing retailers in Arizona that its PSP is not dead. Although the Nintendo DS continues to clobber the PSP in sales, Sony is drumming up more publisher support for the portable. Over the past year, many game companies had abandoned PSP versions of games because of sluggish software sales. Disney Interactive, Electronic Arts, MTV Games, Square Enix, and Ubisoft have all committed to bringing new content to PSP this year.

Some of the new games coming out for PSP include MTV Games’ "Rock Band Unplugged," which will include an in-game store for gamers to download new songs via Wi-Fi. Square Enix’s "DISSIDIA FINAL FANTASY," which has sold 850,000 units since launching before the holidays in Japan, will make its way to North America this summer. Ubisoft is bringing its "Assassin’s Creed" franchise to PSP this year. These titles will join Sony’s own games like "MotorStorm Arctic Edge" and "LittleBigPlanet."

Sony also will release two new limited-edition PSP Entertainment Packs this year for $200 each. Aimed at tweens, the Hannah Montana PSP Entertainment Pack ships in July and includes a new Lilac PSP system, Disney Interactive’s "Hannah Montana" PSP game (an exclusive dancing and rhythm action game for gamers to design the show and go on tour as the teen icon), a selection episodes from the Hannah Montana TV series on UMD, a 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo, and stickers to customize the PSP. For the more traditional male gamers, Sony will ship the "Assassin’s Creed" PSP Entertainment Pack, which will include a new Piano Black PSP, the Ubisoft game and other content.

The key to any console’s success is its exclusive games and its price point. Sony has been delivering great exclusive games like the just-released "Killzone 2." If the price cut comes to fruition this week or by this summer, the PS3 should build some momentum heading into the holidays.

Gaming Guru

John Gaudiosi is a national journalist who has been covering the video game business for more than a decade. In addition to blogging for WRAL.com, he also writes about gaming for Wired Magazine, The Washington Post, Xbox.com and Yahoo! Games. Read more articles…