Sony announces two new Android powered tablets, PSN still down

Matt Hawkins Contributing Writer, Video Games

First off, Sony just announced two new “PlayStation Certified” tablets, both running Android. And as you can see, one especially looks suspiciously familiar….

They’re called the S1 & S2 for the time being, and each sport the most amped up version of the Android OS at the moment, Honeycomb, which is specifically designed for tablet PCs (hence why it’s not coming to your Droid, sorry). Plus there’s 3G/4G connectivity, WiFi (though that’s a given in this day and age), and cameras.

The S1 looks the most like an iPad and the S2 looks like a huge DS. Not to say that Nintendo invented the clamshell design, but you know the deal.

As noted, both are PlayStation certified, which means they’ll be able to play old PSone games, similar to the Xperia PLAY. Yay, more Crash Bandicoot 1!

The S2 in particular looks kinda big, doesn’t it? Actually, not really; here’s footage from the big press reveal, which not only shows its small form factor, but Crash actually being played…

Great, so it looks like a DS at first glance, but will play like an iPhone and iPad, with the digital buttons. Which suck btw. I shudder to think how awful games that rely upon analogue control will operate. Actually, upon second glance, there are no corresponding buttons for analogue sticks? Oy vey.

In other news, the PSN network outage, which we reported last week is still in affect. Absolutely insane. I don’t think anyone expected it to drag out this long.

Yesterday morning, the official PlayStation Blog noted that things were still offline and that there’s no real idea when things would be back up and running. There had been rumblings that PSN would be back up yesterday morning in Japan, and for us over here, but that clearly is not the case (I just checked).

Elsewhere, Sony finally fessed up that the reason for the outage is indeed hackers, as somewhat assumed by most. Though it became something to worry about legitimately (still is, to be honest) when word also began to spread about the possibility that everyone’s credit card info that’s attached to their accounts, might also be in the hands of dirty haxxors.

Which to be honest, further distances this rouge element from “Anonymous”, since that’s really not that style.

Now, the latest theory behind the outage is Sony themselves pulled the plug, in order to fend against another form of custom firmware, which allows average Joes to log into their PSN accounts as a developer. Doing so allows them to add points via dummy credit cards, which in turn lets exploiters go on a virtual shopping spree.

Ugh, filthy pirates ruining everything for everyone. I am MORE that willing to folk over $30-worth of my actual hard-earning money for Arcana Heart 3! Been waiting to do so for a week now.

Rumor: ‘Rebug’ custom firmware enabled ‘free’ PSN downloads, forced Sony’s network shutdown [Joystiq]

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