By Agence France-Presse

SINGAPORE –Sony has no plans to cut the price of its PlayStation 3 game console, the company’s chief financial officer Nobuyuki Oneda said Friday.

“This year, our strategy is not to sell more quantity for PS3 but to concentrate on profitability,” Oneda told a forum in Singapore.

“Our plan is not to reduce the price,” he added.

His comments followed a report in the Wall Street Journal which said Microsoft plans to cut the price on a popular model of its Xbox 360 game console in an effort to boost sales in the face of stronger competition from rival Sony.

The Journal report cited people familiar with the matter who said the price cut would come as early as Sunday.

Oneda also said he expects Sony’s PS3 operations as well as the broader game segment to be profitable for the current year ending March 2009. With a report from Dow Jones Newswires.

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

TO HELP draw more players to the World Cyber Games Philippines tournaments, the local Microsoft Xbox online forum PinoyXbox.com has started a raffle for players of the two Xbox 360 games included in the WCG preliminaries.

The PinoyXbox raffle rules state that players who join the tournaments for Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and Virtua Fighter 5, which are the official Xbox 360 games for the WCG, will get the chance to win several Xbox 360 titles. These include Virtua Fighter 5, Project Gotham Racing 4, Universe at War, Grand Theft Auto 4, and a Guitar Hero III bundle, among others.

The titles are provided by video game sales shop Ysidro’s GameCore and online rental company GameHopper.com. The titles cost between P1,500 pesos to P2,500.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

PINOYXBOX is one of the most prominent console-based gaming forums in the Philippines and is also one of the oldest, having been an offshoot of PinoyExchange. It boasts of 4,000 members, the majority of whom are from the Philippines though some based in other countries. It is pretty much a close-knit society, especially with the availability of Xbox Live, which allows Filipinos to play with or against each other and other nationalities.

Husband and wife Philip and Joanne Ortiz are among the moderators of PinoyXbox. They regularly check out the online activities of their members and get loads of information themselves from members. In one particular thread, there were members who stumbled upon Xbox 360 titles and equipment in a warehouse in Mandaluyong City. The two accidentally found an entire RockBand set that they bought for less than half the price in regular shops. Normally, a RockBand set, which consists of a guitar controller, drum set, microphone and the RockBand title, would sell at around P13,000.

Here’s the video I took of Philip and Joanne, who share some of their experiences as PinoyXbox moderators and Xbox 360 players.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

IF there’s one thing that Xbox 360 owners don’t like to see on their beloved game consoles, it’s the dreaded 3RL, the three red lights that indicate there is a major hardware malfunction. The 3RL has been around since the first batch of the Xbox 360 came out. The most common thread with the 3RL is that the unit, particularly its graphics processing unit (GPU), overheats and would not work until repairs are made. The 3RL is such a big issue that it may be the main reason why wannabe buyers of Microsoft’s gaming machine are holding on to their money, perhaps until better manufacturing processes are put in place so that new batches of Xbox 360s are less prone to hardware failure.

In the Philippines, Xbox 360s outnumbered the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii but owners often complained about the 3RL. Some early users of the Xbox 360s experienced this mishap with a few sometimes buying a new Xbox 360 just to replace the dead one.

However, a few enterprising electricians have learned of a potentially huge market for Xbox 360 repairs and have taken it upon themselves learn the innards of the game console and see if they can resurrect a dead and expensive device. Ronald Caleb San Pedro is but one of them and so far, he’s making some positive rounds among the community of Xbox 360 owners, especially with members of the local forum PinoyXbox.com. San Pedro, who is just barely out of his teens, said the Xbox 360 repair business was huge enough to convince him to provide repair services — even if he has never opened any game console before.

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By Relly Carpio
INQUIRER.net

HUSBAND and wife gamers and bloggers Philip and Joanne Ortiz recently had their blog Third World Gamer added to the official communities recognized by Xbox.com.

Xbox Singapore held a promo last month looking for “Friends of Xbox,” bloggers who talk about the Xbox and their experiences with it. Philip Ortiz’s blog was one of those chosen by Xbox Singapore, and is now linked within the communities.

“I tried it, knowing that there are other blogs out there that are better than mine. So I was pleasantly surprised when mine was one of
those chosen,” he said.

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