PlayStation Portable

Sony posted a $2.9 billion loss for October-December 2011 making this the forth year in a row the company has faced significant financial loss¹. Kazuo Hirai will be promoted to CEO of Sony Corporation², moving up from his current role as President of the Consumer Products & Services Group (as well as other executive roles within the company). Hirai will be replacing current CEO Howard Stringer on April 1, 2012 and will be charged with bringing the company back into the black. Read on

Notes

1. Reuters ↩

2. Gamasutra ↩

BlogKonami has announced that the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection will be available in the United States on November 8. Great if you live there. If you're in Europe - too bad. You have to wait until sometime next year, in 2012. Do we really still live in an era that requires months of extra waiting time for PAL releases because companies were too slack to get their European language localisation sorted earlier? Really? I call bullshit frankly, and I wish companies would move forward and localise things on time. It's not like Konami Europe didn't know the title was coming - what's the deal here? Final Fantasy XIII had no problem with this, neither did Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Even God of War III was only out a couple of days later in Europe than its United States release. Read on

Sega has announced that Valkyria Chronicles III will not be localised to the North American or Europe markets. Hiroshi Seno, Sega's team manager of console sales cited poor PSP system sales in the western markets as well as weak interest in Valkyria Chronicles II. However, Seno noted that a future downloadable release on PlayStation Vita is possible. Read on

In a corporate news brief today, Nintendo has announced an $80 price drop for Nintendo 3DS, effective August 12. The price slash comes less than six months after the launch of the handheld console, plagued by sluggish sales caused by a lackluster game library, an online distribution platform that his been critically dismissed as a pathetic joke¹, and fierce competition² from its predecessor, the Nintendo DSi.

For gamers of all kinds, not just Nintendo fans, the price drop should be cause for concern. Read on

Notes

1. The 3DS eShop, or why Nintendo has no f*cking clue (Destructoid) ↩

2. Analysis: U.S. 3DS Sales Lag Behind DSi, PSP Launches (Gamasutra) ↩

Konami has announced at a pre-E3 presentation that there will be HD re-releases of the Metal Gear Solid series (with Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker included), Zone of the Enders series (with both Zone of the Enders and Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner included) and Silent Hill series (with Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3 included).

Konami have noted they will be using the special editions of titles (such as Subsistence for Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and the special edition of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner for these compilations. The releases will not be emulated, rather full-blown PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 software. Read on