The New PS3 Slim

As many of you know, I got the dreaded blinking red light of death on my launch 60 gig PS3 last week. With FFXIII coming out in a week and a half, sending it out for repair/refurb really wasn’t an option so I decided that I was going to purchase a new PS3 Slim.

Little did I know that PS3’s don’t exist. On Best Buy’s website, you can check the stores inventory online by using the “check stores” option. THREE states, out of the entire USA actually has a Best Buy with a PS3 in stock. Those 3 states are Vermont, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and yes I did a search on all 50 states.

Gamestop is actually taking reservations for PS3’s as we speak for $25 down. No Gamestop on the East Coast has a PS3 in stock other then used ones.

I got the very last PS3 from the Pennsylvania store. It was a 45 minute drive to get to the store so I consider myself super lucky to be able to obtain that.

Sony warned us that this was coming. That the PS3 will be harder and harder to find.

What could be causing these shortages?

A massive patch has been released for MAG which looks to fix some balancing issues and allow you to swap weapons quicker by 500 milliseconds(!). A full list of changes below;

Patch v1.03 Available Now
Gameplay
Overhauled tuning of multiple weapons of all types (see “Weapon” section below)
Improved speed of weapon and gear swapping by approximately 500 milliseconds.
Fixed bug in SVER’s Aralkum Mechanical Acquisition map and Absheron Refinery Domination map that allowed players to defuse a charge planted on a repaired gate or door.
Added a “solid tone” sound effect near the end of a charge’s beeping detonation timer so that players know when the charge can no longer be defused and that they should vacate the area.
“Medium Improved” Armor now works as intended with the speed properties of Medium Armor and a defensive value greater than Medium, but less than Heavy Armor.
Changed resuscitated player’s camera orientation to match the last camera direction used while incapacitated instead of the pre-harm camera.
Players no longer lose XP if a teammate is killed by an objective explosion caused by a charge they planted.
Respec Point requirements in Barracks have been changed from 3K, 5K, 10K, 17K, 26K, and 26K-Repeat to 1K, 2K, 3K, and 3K-Repeat.
Lowered the amount of damage necessary to kill an incapacitated enemy.
All fired projectiles (RPGs, Turret Rockets) have been given a steadier aim.
Mines that haven’t been triggered are no longer removed from the map when the dead player that deploys them respawns unless that player changes their Loadout (note: The maximum number of mines you can plant cannot exceed the number you initially spawn with).
Fixed bug that prevented “fully-resuscitated” players with more than 100 health points from receiving their full HP.
Fixed bug that caused players to take unnecessary damage from both friendly and enemy vehicles when touching them.
Players no longer lose leadership points after entering “Veteran Mode.”
Weapons
“From the hip” firing for Light and Medium machine guns have stronger recoil and are less accurate when moving.
Tuned weapon damage for all three factions.
Modified all short-ranged weapons (pistols, PDWs, shotguns, SMGs) so that they’re less effective at long distances.
Made Battle Rifles more effective.
Reduced accuracy bonus for using iron sights and reflex sights so that players can no longer snipe with weapons that aren’t intended to do so.
Increased damage values for all rockets to make them more effective (ex: three rockets can now destroy a DE turret).
Shooting through thin materials (fences, tents, etc.) will be more consistent.
Increased spread on shotguns.
Improved animations for rocket launchers.
Graphics
Fixed bug that caused the recoil animation to end early or stop animating if a player was firing their weapon for a long period of time.
Changed detonation time on smoke and poison gas grenades to prevent them from exploding in mid-air to eliminate unintended FX issues.
Added realistic fogging effects to sky-domes.
Technical
Fixed most conditions that caused players to be caught in a “respawn loop” which kept restarting the respawn queue when the countdown clock reached 0.
Changed in-game conditions to make it less likely to experience in-game freezes.
Improved client-side stability.  Read more... (551 words, 8 images, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

Capcom has a solid lineup so far for the first half of 2010. What else does the company have in store for the rest of the year?  John Diamonon of Capcom posted on the official Playstation blog that he plans to post a “huge announcement ” on the blog this April. His only hint was “Stay tuned and let the speculation begin!”

Congratulations to all of the LittleBigPlanet community, as we hit another big user-generated milestone with over two million levels created and posted on the “Share Planet.”

What’s New?
For all of you looking for new levels to play, check out our new widget thingy on LittleBigPlanet.com. We’ve added an “Mm Picks” section highlighting some of the best community levels around. And don’t forget about the Mm Picks page, RSS feed and Twitter feed.

Community Levels
On the PSP side of things, our friend JHKthree has been uploading tons of great levels for all to see. Check out some of them over the weekend:

Scenic of the Leaves by Spark151

Zen by jeffcu28

The Shipwreck of Captain Skull by Lleonard

Workshop of the Week
On LittleBigWorkshop.com, our fans have been holding a “Sackperson Clone Contest.” Great contest guys! We can see y’all had fun with this.

For the Weekend
“A Tale of the Sea” level creation contest at LittleBigNetwork.com – Our friends have started a new contest and have put together a little promotional level, which is pretty cool on its own.

LittleBigPodcast is at it again with a new PS3 commercial spoof…too funny!