Kazuo Hirai Will lead Sony Corp.

Kazuo Hirai will be appointed president and CEO come April 1. Hirai will replace Sir Howard Stringer, who is chairman, president and CEO. Stringer will become chairman of the board of directors. Stringer and the board have been discussing succession plans for three years. “Kaz is a globally focused executive for whom technology and the cloud are familiar territory, content is highly valued, and digital transformation is second nature,” said Stringer. “I believe his tough-mindedness and leadership skills will be of great benefit to the company and its customers in the months and years ahead.”

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‘LittleBigPlanet 2′ adds a Muppets level kit

Bunsen Honeydew’s gotten his hands on some things that will make LittleBigPlanet 2 just a little bit stickier, looks like. Next week, a premium level kit based on The Muppets is on the way, which includes five levels, two minigames, and two new gadgets — the Attract-O-Gel (which lets Sackboy walk on walls and ceilings) and Attract-O-Tweak (which lets you make any material sticky). And, of course, the level kit also comes with everything inside those levels, like decorations, music, objects and voices. As a bonus, you also get a Rowlf costume for your Sackperson. No clue whether or not a piano is provided. This kit will be available starting January 24 for £4.79 / €5.99 / US $5.99 / AUS $ 9.95 / NZD $11.50. Check out the video below for a quick peek:

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Visit the Vita Social Club for high end gaming

Last week, Sony invited GamingAngels to visit the new launch of the Vita Social Club. I visited the Los Angeles location. The Vita Social Club is the coolest way to experience the PS Vita for yourself before you buy. The Vita Social Club is in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Chicago and Austin. You can check out the official site to get more information on dates and address. At the event, go with friends or alone, you’ll get some serious one on one time with the PS Vita. You’ll get to choose from a menu of games to try like SoundShapes, UNCHARTED: Golden Abyss, LittleBigPlanet, Little Deviants, WipEout 2048, ModNation Racers, Reality Fighters, and Hot Shots Golf. I’ll be heading back this weekend to get more time with the PS Vita. I wanted to take one home with me at the event, but just so

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Handheld gaming devices will sell well in 2012

There has been recent concern that with the adoption of tablets and smartphones that handheld gaming was a thing of the past. Initial slow 3DS sales seemed to support that fact, but picked up toward the end of the year. International Data Corporation (IDC) announced today in their video game forecasting that handheld sales are going to be very strong over the next few years. “Especially given the 3DS price drop in mid-2011 and in light of respectable initial demand for Vita in Japan this past December, it appears that 2012 is shaping up to be a rebound year for dedicated handhelds,” says Lewis Ward, IDC’s research manager for gaming. “It’s absolutely true that a mind-boggling number of games have been downloaded to iOS- and Android-powered devices in the past year, but only a fraction of those games were paid for and most of those were of the $1 to

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‘Sorcery’ is back with a new trailer

Remember Sorcery? It was a personal highlight of Sony’s E3 2010 press conference, and my reason for buying PlayStation Move. Except for the fact that the game kind of disappeared after that event. But now, thankfully, the game is back as of a couple of months ago. In this trailer, you can get a glimpse inside what Santa Monica Studios have done with this title over the past year and a half. Still looks good to me, but what do you think?

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Sony talks gadgets at CES 2012

Sony kicked off CES 2012 with a celeb filled event. Sony was all about the PS Vita when earlier today AT&T confirmed pricing for the Vita’s 3G SKU, with subscription-free data plans starting at $15 a month. Sony spoke about an “integrated world”. In this world all devices can connect and have unlimited video and music. All because the information is in the Cloud. Then Kaz announces that Music Unlimited and Netflix will be available on the PS Vita. He announced Play Memories Online, a way to photos and videos to the cloud. Cellphones and Bloggie Live will connect through wifi to this service. I love the specs on the Bloggie Live. It makes covering events so easy! It has built in WiFi, films in 1080p and can livestream to Facebook, Twitter and Youtube using Qik. The livestreams are limited to 480×270. The pure amount of content you could create

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What to expect at CES 2012

Tuesday CES 2012 kicks off. I used to cover the event for GamingAngels every year, but this year I can’t go. We will have coverage from other editors and we’ll be trying to keep up with the flood of information coming in. We can then ooh and ahh at all the gadget pretties we want. The video below is my predictions for what we’ll see at CES 2012. Let us know what you are interested in hearing about.

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PlayStation Vita to launch with 25 titles in North America

Sony Computer Entertainment America has confirmed which games will be available on PlayStation Vita’s release date, February 22. There are 25 titles on the list from both Sony and third parties, and pricing will range from $9.99-$49.99. Here’s the full list. Unless otherwise noted, a game on the list is by Sony. Escape Plan (PSN Only) Hot Shots Golf: World Invitational Hustle Kings (PSN Only) Little Deviants ModNation Racers: Road Trip Super StarDust Delta (PSN only) Uncharted: Golden Abyss wipEout 2048 Army Corps of Hell – Square Enix Asphalt Injection – Ubisoft Ben10 Galactic Racing – D3 Publisher of America Blazblue: Continuum Shift EXTEND – Aksys Games Dungeon Hunter Alliance – Ubisoft, Inc. Dynasty Warriors Next – Tecmo Koei F1 2011 – Codemasters EA Sports FIFA Soccer – Electronic Arts Lumines Electronic Symphony – Ubisoft Michael Jackson The Experience – Ubisoft Plants vs. Zombies (PSN Only) – Sony Online Entertainment

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Vita’s proprietary memory card prices revealed — what does that mean to you?

Hey, if you didn’t already know, PlayStation Vita requires that you have a memory card in the system. In other words, if you want to save your game, you’ve got to have a memory card. I know, it’s pretty sad that there’s no onboard hard drive space for the handheld of awesomeness. But hey! Guess what? These things are going to be pretty expensive! How expensive? Well, according to GameStop’s nice little Vita portal they’ve got set up at the moment, the prices look a little something like… 4GB – $29.99 8GB – $44.99 16GB – $69.99 32GB – $119.99 If you want a sizable amount of memory, you’re going to have to spend almost half of the system’s cost. That’s a pretty penny to spend on storage space alone. What compounds all of this into a much bigger issue than you’d think is that the memory cards are proprietary,

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New, magical PS3 bundle switches the focus away from games

Sony announced their new holiday bundle today, and there’s…well, not a game in it. The newest addition to the bundlesphere includes a 3D copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2, a PS3 system (obviously), and vouchers to download the first two movies in the Harry Potter series. This new focus on 3D in a bundle is nicely-timed, given that Sony recently released its new PlayStation-branded 3D display on November 13.

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