July was a clutch month for all three major companies, and all their of their respective consoles. I'll spoil the surprise: the Wii and DS are still kicking everyone's ass, though for the first time there was a dip in their Japanese sales numbers, giving the competition a chance to catch up a bit, and possibly implying that a similar trend could happen here (at the normal Japan-to-USA-trend-migration-time of the approximately 27 years it takes us to catch up with their tech markets). While technically this means that the growth rate of the massive, staggering gap between the Wii and the fat unloved PS3 had a chance to diminish somewhat, this means less of a catch-up and more a shrinkage in the ratio of Wii:PS3's sold (from 4:1 to 3:1; whoop-de-doo).

Meanwhile, back home, things got interesting. Despite early predictions that July would be a huge month for the PS3 wherein it would outsell the 1.5 year old Xbox 360, that never quite happened. The RRoD issues for the 360 piss off fanboys, but people are more concerned with playing the library of excellent games than buying a non-RRoD-prone PS3 and playing Blu-ray movies on it for lack of any decent software. Of course, all three companies wasted no time in putting their own positive spin on the numbers, Sony in particular, but in the end it's the same as it has been: Wii kills the next-gen sales (fastest selling console evarrr in the UK!), Xbox 360 is selling well and will continue to gather momentum as the game library increases (Halo 3 anyone?), and the PS3 is too big, too expensive, and too boring for the masses just yet.

Perhaps the rumored price cuts for the PS3 will kick it in the pants...

It's been a bad run for Sony's consoles with regards to keeping homebrew out. On the PSP front, if you have a PSP and any firmware version from 0-3.5, you can utilize this hack as an exploit to run unsigned code (emulators, etc) on your system. Sony was quick to patch this with firmware version 3.51, but it allows you to run homebrew on very recent firmware without having to downgrade. Hit the jump for a video of the exploit in action.

And first steps were taking in compromising the PS3 recently: hackers were able to boot copied games on a hacked firmware, though they couldn't play them.

You can hear the programmers scrambling to battle stations over at SCEA and SCEJ.

Well, the numbers are all over the place, but one thing is abundantly clear: Nintendo, with the most underpowered and modest hardware/PR campaign, is clearly on top. By far. So much so scrambling for second place has been an ugly, ugly fight between the twin juggernauts of Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo basically smiled its way into first place while the other two were shelling each other with FPS screenshots and venomous statements. Not that they're not taking pot shots at Nintendo now...

Anyhow, the numbers don't lie. For a second, just a quick moment, Nintendo actually surpassed Sony's market value. Sony has sold 1 Million PS3 units in Japan, which according to the same report is more than double the meager 420K Xbox 360's that have sold there. "Oh really? That's nice for you" says Nintendo, chuckling on their way to the bank with huge bags of Yen after having sold their 3 millionth Wii in Japan. So, Sony beat Microsoft 2 to 1, and Nintendo beat Sony 3 to 1. Ouch.

Sony meanwhile remains confident that they can meet their sales goals of 11 million PS3's sold this year, pointing out helpfully that their system should be the logical choice that the Xbox 360's "don't even work!"

Yeah. Wii = money mint. So there. Despite ongoing Wii shortages, reports of increased production of the console may make this a white (and blue LED) Christmas for more people after all!

Dearest Sony,

We're all adults here. We'll forgive you when you pay folks too much to run a marketing campaign full-tilt into a brick wall of potential racism. We'll patiently nod and sigh while you're spinning yarns about numbers, and we'll loyally keep buying your PS2 to play GH2 while the PS3 flounders. We know you're very proud of God of War 2's sales numbers, and you certainly should be. But please, PLEASE, with the PS3 struggling at best (and slipping even further down the Japanese sales charts) and the PS2 being your main lifeline currently, please don't go and do something silly like behead a goat in public and have bare-chested lassies serving drinks around it.

Oh shit. too late.

Um, okay then. Well, then once again.... sigh.

Seriously, check out some choice cuts:

"At the event, guests competed to see who could eat the most offal – procured elsewhere and intended to resemble the goat’s intestines – from its stomach.

Topless girls added to the louche atmosphere by dipping grapes into guests’ mouths, while a male model portraying Kratos, the game’s warrior hero, handed out garlands."

I really don't know where to begin on this one, so I'll let the excellent summary over at Joystiq do most of the talking, but here are the key points:

Sony is expecting to resolve "PS3 shortages" by May... HUH? They're completely nuts, in short. They're spouting rubbish at every opportunity, claiming there's a fierce demand for the PS3, when they've sold 1/2 of all shipped PS3 units... um, whaaa?

Despite this fact, Sony Entertainment CEO Phil Harrison says they are under no pressure to drop the PS3's price, since it's clearly selling so well and all. His take on the widespread availability of PS3's sitting on shelves for days or weeks:

"I think the fact that we are able to have a very well organized, very well managed supply channel, which allows us to keep the stores restocked, is a really positive thing. You would be sitting here saying, "Why the hell are you out of stock? Why the hell can't you manage the supply chain and why can't people buy PS3s?" So we're actually doing in succeeding in managing to keep the demand satisfied, so I think that's a positive."

Oy. I can't even begin to figure out where this guy has gone crazy. This is almost as bass-ackwards as watching Tony Snow.

I mean, come ON guys, you're getting completely dusted by Nintendo ever since the launches in November, and the Xbox 360 is more than keeping pace, if not blowing your socks clean off.

Add to this the recent tragic FUBAR wherein Sony blackballed Kotaku for reporting a rumor about the future of one of the PS3 services. Which got them promptly slammed, both by other gaming news sites of note and by the oodles of Kotaku readers in the comments of the offending posts. Though in the end, everything resolved itself for the better, this was a total scandal that rocked the flimsy sinking ship that Harrison continues to steer on the wrong course, powered on delusional visions and false rhetoric, while everyone else is bailing like mad.

In the end, I'm speechless. Dismayed. Let me let this song speak for me in summarizing my sorrows:

...a real faceful. Seriously, ouch, ouch, ouch. I mean, how do you recover from things like:

"Gabe Newell suggested that Sony should scrap plans to release PS3 and develop an entirely new system."

This from the daddy of Half-Life. NOT small potatoes. Also, notably:

"'The happy story is the Wii,' he added. 'I’m betting that by Christmas of next year, the Wii has a larger installed base than the 360. Other people think I’m crazy. I really like everything that Nintendo is doing.'"

So basically, Sony gets a beatdown, Mario gets a handjob.

In a landmark ruling in the land down under, in the Sony/Hardware/System maker vs. Mod Chip war, the Mod Chippers have won! The case basically points out that region-encoding limits consumers unfairly (amen), but also comes dangerously close to opening up the pandora's box of legalized piracy. It's a tough nut to crack: personally, it's my damn hardware and I should be able to play it, broil it, turn it into a habitrail, and yes, mod it if I want to. Telling console owners, consumers, that they don't have the right to mod their hardware is like saying Honda Civic owners can't tweak their engines. All of the you-bought-this-unit-so-therefore-you-agree-to-this-license-agreement is rubbish IMHO; if someone sells you something, that's that. It's yours. Do with it as you wish. If Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo wanted to lease consoles from now on, that'd be a different story. But for now, as long as we're lining up for days and buying consoles by the tens of thousands, any country with a decent legal system should follow suit with the aussies and let us crack the case and solder away.

Nintendo has already led a strong charge in circumventing the need for chips by making the DS region-free (play imports! all you want! yippie!), and if Sony and Microsoft would get out of their proprietary mindsets, chances are they'd see modding drop a notch as well by letting US/EU Otaku play Japanese imports on their systems.

First and foremost, who wants to get me 8 of these for Hanukkah? Either the original or the Advantage model would be dope. Thanks in advance.

Jumping over to Japan, Kotaku has had some great (and nostalgia-inducing) live coverage of the Japanese Wii launch sale, moblogged right from my old stomping grounds of Osaka's Umeda district. I made friends with the San Francisco 49'ers offensive line right outside that Yodabashi Camera store where everyone is waiting. Look at the lovely queues, all nice and peaceful. Living stateside again sure is a different experience...

In other Wii news, under the DIY hacks heading, we've got a nice set of instructions on how to rig up your included Wii sensor bar to run off a 9-volt battery, no wires need!

Finally, in what probably comes as the most scary and shocking news, there's been some major developments over at Sony: Ken Kutaragi (the father of the Playstation) was demoted right out of the gaming division of SCE, and replaced with... well it doesn't really matter who. The point is, to put it in plain terms, if the PS3 tanks, Sony as a company is doomed. Period. Wired can catch you up in full detail if you've been missing out, but to take out someone who's single-handedly crafted products that have netted Sony somewhere around 80-90% of their profits since the PSOne because of a risky Blu-Ray strategy is foolish, and as a Sony insider noted, could eliminate the chances for a PS4. Ever. We'll see - it would kill a part of my soul to see Sony die, but it's not looking good.