Sony’s Kaz Hirai, who has been managing the PlayStation division for a decade now, has been promoted to the very top of the Sony ladder: he replaces Howard Stringer as the CEO and President of the company. Hirai will assume his position on April 1, and Stringer will be moved to Chairman of The Board.

Hirai is famously known for his “Riiidge Racer” outburst during an E3 presentation when showing off the PSP many years ago. Video above.

Sony has released an updated version of the PlayStation 3 console, with a few changes. The weight of the console has been reduced from 3 KG to 2.6 KG, and power consumption has been lowered as well, from 230W to 200W. A few exterior changes have been made as well, with the reorder of buttons and the removal of some LED lights.

The hard drive remains the same: 320 GB for the base version, and the prices will remain the same as well, with a 160GB version for $299 and 320GB for $399. The SKU number for the new model is CECH-3000B. The accessories still include a Dual Shock 3 controller, power cable, AV cable and USB cable — but, still, no HDMI cable.

Well folks E3 is underway and you know what that means – a ton of new announcements from every major name within the gaming industry. One of the biggest announcements to come out of Sony is the announcement of the PlayStation Vita. Before you get too excited thinking this is a PlayStation 4 make note that the Vita is simply the official name of the PSP’s successor previously known as the NGP. For those looking for a bit more background into the Vita naming, according to Sony it means Life in Latin. Now that we’ve got that out of the way let us dive into what the Vita actually offers.

If you weren’t paying attention back when the NGP was announced the PlayStation Vita features a 5-inch OLED multitouch display with 960 x 544 resolution, a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, a rear touch pad, front/rear facing cameras, dual analog sticks, a d-pad and the rest of the controls you’d expect to see on a Sony console. However, the specs aren’t the only tings Sony made official today as they have also come forth to give us the official pricing scheme for the PlayStation Vita.

Originally many thought the NGP would be priced well over $400 but that isn’t the case. Instead, Sony has let us know that the WiFi-only model will run $249.99 while the 3G enabled model complete with AT&T connectivity will run $299.99. No solid word on when the Vita will actually hit the streets but we’ll keep you posted.

If you’re a PS3 owner you’ll undoubtedly know that the PlayStation Network has been down for quite some time now. If you weren’t aware this downtime was due to a group of hackers exploiting holes in the network’s security to gain access to a whole slew of personal information including credit card numbers, home addresses, phone numbers and even passwords. This has basically sent the entire PlayStation community into a frenzy as it’s quite obviously a very large breech.

Well, if you’ve been sitting by looking to resume your Black Ops binge sessions you’re in luck. Sony has just recently announced that the PlayStation Network is officially back up and running. This includes online play, trophies, services like Netflix and much more. However, before you sign into the PlayStation Network, Sony is going to ask you to change your password – something that doesn’t come as much of a surprise at all.

What have you been doing when the PlayStation Network was down?

There has been a ton of fuss regarding Sony circulating the web largely due to the fact that after their PlayStation Network was taken down by hackers they have yet to put it back up. Luckily, word hit the street that they would be hoping to launch the PSN but May 31st but we’ve heard some contrasting reports that said these were just estimates and not a solid date. Another thing is that there have been notes that hackers have yet again targeted the PSN which may cause Sony to further delay the service’s relaunch.

Luckily, it seems that these reports had no basis as Sony has come forth today to let us know that there have be no such attacks and that these reports were nothing more than incorrect rumors.

It’s been weeks since Sony shut down the PlayStation Network due to hackers infiltrating it and stealing user data (including credit card data). Sony has slowly reinstated some of the services, and has announced that they expect to full restart PSN and all its features on May 31. PSN has been down since April 20, and has prevented PlayStation 3 owners from playing online ever since.

Over the past few weeks, Sony has been working on restructuring their network, adding firewalls, and improving overall security of the system. With the lack of online capabilities gone from PlayStation 3, it spells a difficult launch for one game: Brink, the online shooter which will be released for PlayStation 3 this week.

By now you’ve heard about the PlayStation Network on the PS3 being down for days, without any formal announcement from Sony. At first, everyone thought it was a DDOS attack from hacker groups who aren’t Sony’s biggest fans after the recent incidents.

However, new light has been shed on the issue, and it now appears that Sony deliberately took PSN offline because a new custom firmware allowed access to the trusted developer network on PSN. The new firmware also allowed hacked consoles to get online and not only have all the features as regular PSN accounts, but to easily rip and pirate any content on the PSN Store.

No wonder Sony took the whole network offline. The PSN outage has lasted longer than a week now, and it’s not wonder Sony is taking their time. They recently issues a warning to PS3 developers regarding the issue. But we’re still surprised they haven’t made a formal announcement explaining things to PS3 owners.

If you’ve tried to log into the PlayStation Network anytime in the last couple of days you’re sure to know that you’ve been unable to do so. As we told you, this is due to the PlayStation Network quite obviously being completely down. However, while we’ve known that the network has been down, Sony hasn’t come forth to tell us exactly what is causing the downtime.

Well today they have finally come forth to tell us that the downtime is due to an ‘external intrusion’. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll probably know that following the Geohot lawsuit there was a ton of back lash against Sony from the community so it’s really no surprise that it’s ongoing despite the fact that it was slated to end not long after the lawsuit did.

What have you been doing during the PlayStation Network downtime?

One of the biggest selling points of Sony’s PS3 is the fact that you don’t have to pay for access to its online service dubbed the PlayStation Network. However, some have argued that due to this the PlayStation Network isn’t quite as reliable as the Xbox 360′s Xbox Live. This point is supported by the fact that as of late the PlayStation Network has featured some down time.

In fact, just today it was noted that the PlayStation Network has gone down. Luckily, Sony has already come forth to comment on the downtime saying they are currently looking into the problem which doesn’t sound very promising. Even worse, Sony is saying that from an early analysis of the problem they are expecting the network to possibly be down for an additional day or two.

What have you been doing when the PlayStation Network is down?