Remember when the Playstation 3 launched and Sony execs tripped all over themselves to say things like consumers were confused over all the SKUs of Xbox 360s, only to introduce a fleet of new PS3 SKUs? Remember when Sony execs criticized Microsoft for having two different models for Xbox Live in Silver and Gold? Funny how things change.

Kaz Hirai of Sony has officially confirmed that 2010 will bring a paid subscription to the Playstation 3.

Gamespot:

During the presentation, which emphasized Sony’s plans to make its game business profitable in the next fiscal year, Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Kaz Hirai confirmed the plans. “We will be building upon our current free [PSN] service offering with premium content and services to start the subscription model,” he told attendees.

Perhaps to assuage PS3 owners’ fears that they would soon have to pay to play online, Hirai issued a subsequent statement indicating the present level of service would remain gratis.

“SCE will further increase sales by offering users new entertainment through the combination of hardware, software, peripheral, and PlayStation Network,” Hirai said in a statement given to British outlets, such as CVG. “Especially in the online area, we are studying the possibility of introducing a subscription model, offering premium content and services, in addition to the current free services.” (Emphasis added.)

As of press time, US Sony reps had not offered Hirai’s statement or further clarification about its subscription plans for the PlayStation Network. Luckily, though, the “current free services” currently offered on PSN include online play, Facebook integration, and Netflix video streaming. On Xbox Live, both of those features are only accessible at the Gold membership level, which costs at least $50 per year.

Microsoft has wrapped up their E3 press briefing, wherein suit wearing dweebs read from a TelePrompTer and try their best to act hip but usually come off as uncomfortably pathetic. For those of you with short attention spans, I present an unvarnished look at the big announcements with suitably snarky commentary.

• The Beatles: Rock Band is introduced. It’s like Rock Band, but with Beatles music. The graphics are like Rock Band, but with a Beatles aesthetic. It will make a lot of money, but Beatles kinda money.
• Watching Harmonix programmers play fake instruments is still ridiculous.

• Yoko Ono is brought to the stage to wave at the crowd for no particular reason. Considering she broke up the Beatles, this is an odd gesture. It would have made more sense to have her immolated right there on stage.

• Paul McCartney and Ringo Star arrive on stage to much fanfare. Neither seems to know where they are and what they are doing there. They mumble nonsense and leave the stage to much acclaim, because you see, when you’re from a legendary rock group you really don’t need to try any more.

• Tony Hawk introduces Tony Hawk: Ride, which looks like all the other Tony Hawk games, but this time with a plastic board that has built in sensors and crap. Strangely, Tony never gets on the board for a live demonstration, though we are treated to a video demonstration that fails to seal the deal.

• Cliffy B and his partner in crime take the stage and talk up Shadow Complex, some platform shooter that doesn’t look very inspiring, unless you thought the original Turrican was inspiring. Fortunately, microphone trouble makes hearing half of the explanation impossible, which is just as well. read more…

Pirate Bay, the popular BitTorrent site, raised quite a few eyebrows when it introduced a small applet last week that allowed Facebook users to link torrents to their profile.  Facebook didn’t waste any time in bringing the hammer down, as the company has disabled this capability.

From Wired:

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told TorrentFreak on Wednesday that the social-networking site “respects copyrights and our Terms of Service prohibits placement of ‘Share on Facebook’ links on sites that contain any content that is infringing. Given the controversy surrounding The Pirate Bay and the pending lawsuit against them, we’ve reached out to The Pirate Bay and asked them to remove the ‘Share on Facebook’ links from their site. The Pirate Bay has not responded and so we have blocked their torrents from being shared on Facebook.”

Netflix and Facebook are joining forces, ensuring Blockbuster has one more thing to worry about as it tries to stay solvent. Members of Facebook can now share their online profiles between the two sites while Netflix users can share their reviews and ratings on Facebook.

From NewsOxy:

“Movies make for great conversations,” said Gibson Biddle, vice president of product management for Netflix. “By integrating with Facebook Connect, Netflix members can now share their movie-watching experiences even more easily than before, allowing for greater exchange of movie recommendations with their friends.”

“Netflix is a clear leader in bringing innovation to renting, viewing and engaging around movies,” said Ethan Beard, director of platform marketing, Facebook. “We think the social features in Facebook Connect provide a tremendous opportunity for Netflix subscribers to share their thoughts and feelings on movies with their friends in the Netflix community and with Facebook’s more than 175 million active users.”