Sony To Post First Loss In 14 Years

According to news.com.au's sources in Japan Sony, the electronics giant, will be posting its first loss in 14 years. Sony is expected to "post an operating loss of ¥100 billion" ($1.6 billion AUD) due to falling demand and a stronger yen the Nikkei business daily reported.

Personally I'm only surprised it hasn't happened sooner. Sony have a tendency to come out with wonderful new gadgets that cost an arm and a leg then not bother advertising them or they sabotage themselves in other ways.

Back in the day I bought (for a ridiculous amount of hard earned cash) the first "portable" MiniDisc recorder, the MZ1. It was huge but dear to my heart but not once did I see a Sony advertisement for MiniDisc other than on English soccer jerseys. By the time other people knew about MiniDiscs the MP3 revolution had arrived burying what could have been a large money spinner and really a handy product.

Now we have the PS3 which is leaning heavily on its Bluray capabilities to convince people that it's worth twice as much as an Xbox 360 which does essentially the same thing. Obviously not everyone is convinced.

It's about time Sony had a big rethink. Maybe they should use Microsoft as an example after all the positive hype around Windows 7 compared to the negative hype surrounding Vista prior to release.

Tekken 6 Trailer Is Awesome

I know the word "awesome" is thrown around a lot these days, especially in the same sentence as my name (usually with a negator in between) and remember, that without me it's just "aweso".

Regardless of this drivel, the following Tekken 6 trailer is, well, awesome. Plenty of OTT explosions and action that would make Michael Bay blush. Of course it's all pre-rendered goodness, as with most Tekken cutscenes/trailers etc. but there are a few in-game shots thrown in, especially near the end. Make sure you watch out for the portly pork farmer "Bob" bringing the smackdown as Japan's stereotype of US citizens (about time!).

The new trailer is to celebrate the arcade favourite making its way on to the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles. I just hope there's a demo coming out, that's about all I can manage with my l33t button mashing skillz.

Thanks for the heads up Kotaku.

LittleBigPlanet Calculator Boggles the Mind

Remember the other day when I mentioned that the developers of LittleBigPlanet, this year's PS3 killer app, said that it wasn't a game but a platform for creating almost anything. Well one lucky gamer who got a hold of a beta key has taken that concept the extreme.

While maybe not as much fun as the Tetris remake, this fully functioning adding/subtracting machine (video below) consists of 610 magnetic switches, 500 wires and 430 pistons. It may not look like much but wait until the mad scientist behind this creation enters the editor and shows you the inner (or outer depending on how you look at it) workings.

Thanks for the tip Kotaku!

Citroën Stops Teasing and Finally Reveals GTbyCITROËN

Citroën, one of France's largest manufacturers, has been teasing us for weeks with shots of their mystery concept car. The photos that have been dribbling out have shown a white (it's the new black!), highly stylised vehicle mostly shrouded in a red sheet with the Gran Turismo branding on it.

Well, they finally revealed the whole car at the Paris Motor Show and we even know its name: GTbyCITROËN. Yes, the name looks like a typo but that really is it... all mashed up like that.

I'm not a big fan of Citroën's production car designs but this beast blew me away. What makes this concept car even more interesting is that it is already available to play in Gran Turismo 5: Prologue on the PS3. Loading up the game now will let you download a set of new vehicles including the GTbyCITROËN. Citroën says the car was "a partnership between Citroën and Polyphony." Polyphony of course being the people behind the hugely successful Gran Turismo game series on Playstation 2 and 3.

In the game the new GT concept is a hybrid EV powered by hydrogen fuel cells with 646 bhp (481 Kw) from the main engine plus an additional 136 bhp (101 Kw) from hydrogen-power. The 3,000-pound two-seater takes a virtual 3.6 seconds to get from 0 to 100 kmh so it's fast, but not THAT fast. Of course anyone can make up whatever they want in the game world so we'll just have to wait and see what the real deal can do.

Plenty of photos of the real thing and the virtual thing over at Autoblog.

Tetris Remade In LittleBigPlanet

LittleBigPlanet is the ONLY reason to buy a Playstation 3. It looks great and promises such cool gameplay but just recently the developers of the game have been telling us that it isn't a game, it's a universe full of tools to create anything and everything.

So to prove that, someone's gone and created a LittleBigPlanet version of Tetris (see the cool video below). Doing things the LittleBigPlanet way this isn't just a simple recreation of the classic Russian game. Keep your ears out for the old Tetris music playing in the background.

Thanks for the tip Kotaku!

Get That Last Guy

Man, I love the way the Japanese come up with whacky and wonderful new ways to play games. Take this online version of the upcoming PS3 game The Last Guy. The idea is to save everyone on screen by running around and letting them join your group. When you have enough followers take them to the Escape Zone but don't go too close to the bad guys or the little people will scatter or worse, you'll die.

What makes this fun is that you can choose pretty much any website to use as the play field. The whitespace acts as areas you can travel through with images and dark areas blocking your way. To get a feel for the game I recommend running around on Google or even my blog here.

There's a table of the most played sites on the front page of the Japanese site. Some of them are pretty hard.

Solid Snake: That's What She Said

I'm all for having strange little easter eggs and cute jokes in games but I think Kojima and Co. have taken it a little too far this time. Earlier today there were some creepy/sexy (depending on your brain chemistry) videos of Old Snake doing an Austin Powers photo session with the "Beauties" of MGS4. Now there's a new video of Snake taking more piccies but this time he plays his iPod (did I mention there is a lot of product placement in MGS4?) and the "Beauty" starts dancing and acting like she's holding a microphone. Thanks for creeping me out again Kotaku!