Karlstadunix

A GROUP of PlayStation 3 (PS3) players has been left high and dry after a scam artist left the lot not only out of pocket and but also their consoles offline.

Some of the more than 20 fuming gamers have made a police report against the anonymous man, entrusted to buy games online on their behalf for the popular video game console.

It all started back in February, when a user nicknamed Prinsipe offered, on game forums such as GameAxis and Play-sg, to purchase games for others from the PlayStation Network store in the United States.

The US store offers the newest games months ahead of their release in Singapore, but you need a US credit card to buy them.

Prinsipe said he was offering the service in order to chalk up his credit card points. He also offered discount packages of $88 for about 20 games, which would be shared among groups of players. Many users thought it was a deal too good to miss.

Software technician Vincent Weng, 24, said he decided to buy because he saw on the forums that Prinsipe had received good reviews from other buyers.

‘At first, I questioned his reliability, but from the threads, lots of people said he was a reliable seller, so I joined,’ he said.

Such pitching in to share game costs is technically not disallowed though it is understood that Sony Computer Entertainment, which makes the PS3, did not mean for the system to be used this way.

The gamers trusted him, despite only knowing him by his online handle. After corresponding via a few e-mail messages or text messages, they paid the money and received links to the games for their consoles.

But barely three months later, these same users found the games could no longer be played.

Further checks on the forums found that they had been cheated.

Process engineer Samuel Low, 30, said: ‘At first I thought it was a connection problem, but even after a few days, it was the same problem.

‘I went back online and realised other people had the same problem too. We put the puzzle pieces together and realised the (game) accounts had been suspended.’

They contacted Sony in the US and found that the accounts were suspended because the bill had not been paid.

One victim, a civil servant who wanted to be known only as Mr Koh, 30, said a staff member at Sony told him the credit card’s owner was disputing the charges and Sony’s legal department was investigating.

Generally, accounts suspended for billing reasons will be resumed once the money is paid. But for ‘other more serious reasons’, owners will not be able to download software updates or buy any more games online.

After compiling a dossier of Prinsipe’s personal details such as his e-mail addresses and clues about his real-life identity like his bank account number and nationality, the group of disgruntled buyers recently reported the scam to the police.

The Straits Times could not reach Prinsipe despite repeated e-mail messages and phone calls to him.

Some of the victims said their options were to ‘wait-and-see’, live with a machine that cannot connect online or try to sell it to those who want a second-hand console.

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Sony has launched an “Official License Program” to bring more peripherals to the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, PSP, and upcoming PSPgo.

By joining, manufacturers will “gain access to technical documentations necessary for designing and creating variety of licensed products for PlayStation platforms.” Sony is working with manufacturers in Japan, Asia, North America and Europe.

At this point, I just want peripherals to work cross-platform and cross-title. I’m tired of buying new plastic instruments.

Since there isn’t much more to discuss here… what is your favorite peripheral of all time? Mine is the NES Track and Field mat because you could just jump off of it and cheat.

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The Sony rumor that just won’t die has reared its potentially beautiful head again: a PSP phone may be in the works. The latest back room rumblings come courtesy of Japan’s Nikkei Business Daily, which says Sony is about to open up a new department that will explore a “cell phone-game gear hybrid,” according to Reuters. Sony’s secret department could begin work as early as July, and so far the PlayStation maker is declining to comment on the rumors.

The obvious target of Sony’s rumored plan is Apple’s iPhone. Since the introduction of the iPhone 3G, gaming has been front and center in Apple’s iPhone-iTunes App Store ecosystem. Seven of Apple’s top ten iPhone applications are games, and mainstream game publishers have for some time been incorporating the iPhone into their plans. Even the iPhone jailbreaking community is getting into gaming by using the iPhone to emulate original PlayStation games.

Sony, meanwhile, is struggling to maintain relevance with its mobile gaming platform, the PlayStation Portable. The company recently revamped the PSP and came up with a smaller, more compact device called the PSP GO. The new device swaps out the UMD drive for a 16GB HDD, and also has a 3.8-inch screen, Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi connectivity, and a slide-out screen to reveal gaming controllers underneath. The PSP Go hits store shelves October 1.

Despite the improvements to the PSP, the new gaming machine is still limited when compared to the multifunctional iPhone. For whatever reason, Sony is reluctant to place the PlayStation name on a mobile device made by its cell phone partner Sony Ericsson. Tentative flirtations have begun with the Aino — a device that can pull any content except games from the PlayStation 3 using Sony’s Remote Play feature — but what Sony doesn’t seem to realize is that the PS3 is all about gaming. So without gaming integration, the Aino is really just another mobile device with Wi-Fi.

Other Sony brands like Walkman and CyberShot have already crossed over to Sony Ericsson devices, but for some reason the PlayStation moniker has not. What’s strange is that a PSP phone is a no-brainer, especially since the iPhone continues to take bigger chunks out of the mobile gaming market.

But then again, Sony isn’t known for its capability to detect changes in consumer behavior. Sony’s Walkman lost out to Apple’s iPod before the company ever knew what a click wheel was, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is outshining the PlayStation 3, and Nintendo is already beating out the PSP with its Nintendo DS lineup. A PSP phone gives Sony a shot to regain some lost ground; however, anything short of a fully functioning PSP combined with an intuitive smartphone just won’t do. As Ray Kurzweil would say, “the singularity is near.” Sony needs one device that can do it all, just like the iPhone can. The stakes are high, but if Sony does get it right and comes out with a true PSP phone, well, that’s what you could legitimately call an iPhone killer.

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