The PlayStation TV micro console from Sony is available at North American retailers in several packages today. The micro console from Sony comes in two flavors: a $99.99 standalone system (minus a memory card and controller), or a $139.99 bundle that includes a wireless DualShock 3 controller, 8GB memory card, and The Lego Movie Videogame.

In Europe (launching November 14), PS TV will retail for around £84.99/€99.99 and will include vouchers for Worms Revolution Extreme, Velocity Ultra and OlliOlli. Controllers and memory cards will have to be purchased separately.

After a lengthy wait, PS Vita owners will finally be able to play Mojang's popular world crafting game Minecraft next week. Sony announced via the PlayStation Blog that the PS Vita Edition of Minecraft will be coming to the Playstation store next week.

Minecraft PS Vita Edition will be available via the PlayStation Store on Oct. 14 for only $19.99, while the retail version will be released on Nov. 11.

Sony announced this morning that scheduled PlayStation Network maintenance is to take place on October 13 in North America, and October 14 in Europe. In North America, PSN maintenance will reportedly take place between 10am and 5pm PT on October 13, according to CVG. PSN maintenance in Europe will take place from 6pm BST next Monday until 1am BST on Tuesday.

Game Informer has an interesting report on how some consumers in regions such as South Africa, Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey are seeing rate increases for their PlayStation Plus subscriptions. While some of this is based on currency conversion rates, it looks like South African customers are simply getting a major rate increase.

Contrary to the narrative created online after Sony announced that it would shut down its virtual playground down early next year in all regions including Japan, North America, and Europe, PlayStation Home was a commercial success. At least that is what nDreams CEO Patrick O'Luanaigh tells GamesIndustry International.

A new report from research firm GfK indicates that, while videogame systems are still the most common hardware used for watching Netflix on a TV screen , they are being used much less than they were three years ago. The report, "Over-the-Top TV 2014," also indicated a growing number of US households are relying more and more on dedicated set-top/plug-in devices to watch Netflix on a TV set.

Sony announced that almost 700 games will be available on PlayStation TV when it launches in Europe and North America later this year. The PlayStation TV is a micro-console originally made for Asia that allows streaming of PS4 games to another HD in your home, as well as select PS Vita, PSP, and PS One classic games.

Sony is set to launch an internet television service with the promise of streaming dozens of channels to PlayStation systems later this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Sony announced today that, despite the PS4 selling so well, it still expects to report a net loss of 230 billion yen, or $2.1 billion, for the current fiscal year ending in March 2015. The scope and size of the net loss is a lot larger than what the company predicted back in July: it previously predicted a net loss of 50 billion yen, or $466m.

Sony is pinning this loss on impairment charges of 180 billion yen or $1.7 billion related to its struggling smartphone business

With Minecraft finally hitting Xbox One today and PlayStation 4 yesterday, we thought it would be a good idea to post a video and a link explaining how PS3 and Xbox 360 users of the game can upgrade over to the game's next-generation counterparts.

First, for those who own the PS3 version of the game and want to upgrade to the PS4 versions, we point you to this PlayStation Blog post explaining how to make that happen. The process is pretty simple and straightforward.

Those who purchased a 12 GB PlayStation 3 system will soon find themselves unable to play GTA Online, according to Rockstar Games. According to the GTA V and GTA Online maker, PS3 12GB owners will either need to upgrade their hard drive to a larger size or play Grand Theft Auto V in offline mode. The reason behind this sudden and dramatic change? A new title update, version 1.16, was released on August 19 and it requires more storage space than the 12GB PS3 can hold.

According to data collected and curated by popular porn destination PornHub, 45.8 percent of the site's console traffic comes from PlayStation 3 users, 41.4 percent is from Xbox 360 users, with Wii users (6.4), 3DS users (1.4) and PS Vita users (4.5) far behind the rest of the pack but still registering enough to be noticed.

Last year at about this time Sony decided to stop releasing new content for PlayStation Home in Japan. Now the company says that it will lay the virtual environment to rest in March of 2015. A translation of the message (as detailed by Joystiq) goes on to note that the PlayStation Home services maintained by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and Sony Computer Entertainment America will be exempt from this eventual shutdown.

Sony first launched its virtual 3D MMO-like environment for the PlayStation 3 in August of 2008 in Japan.

Sony is cutting the price of the PlayStation 3 in Japan and discontinuing some models, according to Siliconera.

Sony held its Gamescom PlayStation press briefing in Cologne, Germany today, detailing some of the games and new features coming to the PlayStation 4 this year and beyond into 2015.

Sony opened its Gamescom press briefing by revealing that the install base for PS4 has exceeded 10 million globally.

New month, new games for you to download for free (well, if you have a PlayStation Plus subscription or an Xbox Live Gold account). Beginning today Xbox Live Gold subscribers can download three of the four games that are part of Microsoft's Games With Gold free-game-giveaway program. From now until August 15 you can grab Motorcross Madness for Xbox 360 for free. You can also get some cool Xbox Avatar off-road gear from the game. Xbox One owners can grab either Crimson Dragon or Strike Suit Zero: Director's Cut. On August 16 Xbox 360 owners can score Dishonored.

Sony has reported record revenues for its latest quarter, thanks to brisk PlayStation 4 sales and profits from game-related network services. Sony's Game and Network Services division enjoyed sales of $2.55 billion for the three-month period that ended on June 30, 2014, a 95.7 percent increase when compared to the same period a year ago. All told, the games division made a profit of $43 million, compared to a $159 million loss in the same period a year ago.

Sony has agreed to a settlement concerning the PlayStation Network security breach of 2011, which saw various online services related to the PS3 and PSP go offline for months after hackers compromised Sony's security on PSN and walked away with millions of customers' private data.

Under the terms of the deal PSN users get a choice of an old PS3 or PSP game, or three months of the PlayStation Plus subscription service. The PS Plus option is only available to customer that live in the U.S.

If you put all the sales for your most recent consoles together it looks pretty impressive. That's what Sony did revealed via a new promotional video that it has sold 100 million PS3, PS4, and PS Vita systems to-date, collectively. Of course the lion's share of that number belongs to the PS3, which has sold 80 million units since its release many moons ago to November 2013.

In the past Sony said that - since its release in November of last year more than 7 million PS4 systems have been sold as of April 6.

Sony will begin rolling out its PlayStation Now beta to select models of its smart TVs in the United States next week, the company announced today. Beginning June 30, owners of Sony 4K Ultra HDTV sets and select 1080p HDTVs will get access to the "Private Pilot Service."

The beta test for PlayStation Now on these select TVs will allow participants to play PlayStation 3 games on their television with no console required, though they will have to connect a DualShock 3 controller to the TV to play the streamed PS3 games.

Two free games a month from Xbox Live? Sony is upping the ante by announcing that, starting in July, PS Plus subscribers (divided up amongst PS3, PS4, and PS Vita) will get two titles per platform on the first Tuesday of each month in North America and the first Wednesday every month in Europe. The previous month's titles will expire on that same day, Sony announced Thursday.

Sony has signed a partnership in China - much like Microsoft has already - to manufacture and sell its PlayStation consoles on the mainland. The deal, part of two joint ventures with Shanghai Oriental Pearl, gives Sony access to China's estimated 500 million gamers in China.

Mojang's best selling open world building game Minecraft is about to generate more revenue for the company when new versions are released this August. Mojang has confirmed the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions of Minecraft will launch in early August.

A new report from the Natural Resource Defense Council concludes that the newest generation of game consoles consumer way too much power. The report notes that these new systems are on track to consume as much power nationwide as all the homes in Houston this year. That equates to about $1 billion to operate these systems annually.

Much of this energy is consumed in "the middle of the night, when the console is in standby mode but still listening for voice commands or using higher power than necessary to keep USB ports active."

Prior to Sony reporting its consolidated results for the fiscal year ending March 31, CEO Kazuo Hirai and other executives will not be taking bonuses this year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

They may also take a 50 percent pay cut this year, according to the report. Sony's exit from the PC business as well as consumer disinterest in physical media such as DVDs and Blu-ray discs are the main reason for these reductions in pay and bonuses.

According to multiple sources within the company, Microsoft plans to lift the Xbox Live Gold requirement for consumers who want to watch Netflix, Hulu and other streaming media apps on Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Basically it means that consumers who buy a brand new Xbox One will be able to watch these services right out of the box without having to worry about having an Xbox Live Gold account. Of course you'll still have to set up a free Silver account in order to do anything.

Naughty Dog's popular PS3 exclusive action game The Last of Us, has sold six million copies to date, according to a Sony Computer Entertainment America announcement today. SCEA did not say whether those numbers represent units sold to retailers or units sold to consumers... The Last of Us sales topped 3.4 million units between the game's global release on June 14 and July 3.

Hitting that milestone officially made the game the fastest selling new franchise in the console's history and the quickest selling PS3 game of 2013, according to Sony.

There were rumors floating about last week that the PlayStation Store would offer rental options to customers as part of its Gaikai-powered streaming service for older PS3 games. It turns out that there is some truth to it.

Ubisoft is apparently comfortable enough to give us a concrete date for the release of its open world game Watch Dogs. Much to the chagrin of Wii U owners, the company only offered a vague timeframe of "available at a later date." That later date will be sometime after the game releases worldwide on May 27 for PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Hopefully this will be the last time the game gets delayed.

According to one Electronic Arts executive, consumers should not expect to see a price cut on last generation systems like the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 any time soon. Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, & Technology conference in San Francisco this week, EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said not to expect any movement on that front until the end of this year - possibly during or after the 2014 holiday shopping season.