Sony

Back when Sony's February PlayStation 4 unveiling concluded without actually showing what the console itself would look like, I actually defended the company. After all, the look of the plastic shell surrounding the new PlayStation hardware didn't actually matter as much as the games on display. After seeing today's teaser trailer promoting the PS4's E3 press appearance, though, I have to think that Sony is just trolling us at this point.

When Sony announced its next-generation game console PlayStation 4 back in February, one of the most unique features it talked up was the “Share” button. Right there on the control pad was a button that would instantly begin streaming a live video of whatever the player was doing at the time.

Japan’s biggest television maker, reported its first annual profit in five years after selling assets and benefiting from a weaker yen that boosted overseas revenue. The shares rose.

Net income was probably 40 billion yen ($403 million) in the year ended March 31, compared with a net loss of 456.7 billion yen a year earlier, the company said in a preliminary earnings statement yesterday. The average of 18 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg was 43.3 billion yen.

A hacker who pleaded guilty last year to taking part in an extensive computer breach of Sony Pictures Entertainment was sentenced on Thursday in Los Angeles to a year in prison, followed by home detention, federal prosecutors said.

Cody Kretsinger, a LulzSec hacker who used the online moniker "Recursion," pleaded guilty in April 2012 to one count each of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Sony revealed the PS4 at an event in New York last month and it managed to impress a lot of industry people. Linus Blomberg, CTO and Co-founder of Avalanche Studios, is one of them.

He told us that due to the competition from mobile platforms, and due to the fact that PCs have overtaken consoles by a large amount when it comes to performance, a new console cycle was needed desperately.

By the time Sony unveiled the PlayStation 4 at last night's press conference, the rumor mill had already basically told us what the console would be made of inside the (as-yet-nonexistent) box: an x86 processor and GPU from AMD and lots of memory.

Yesterday, Sony gave a sneak-peek at its next-generation PlayStation®4 (PS4™) game console coming later this year and, here at AMD, we couldn’t be more excited. Bringing a supercharged PC architecture that combines next-gen hardware, software, and the fastest game network in the world. Oh, and this is all powered by a semi-custom designed AMD accelerated processing unit (APU) jointly developed in coordination with Sony!

So the world didn't exactly get what it wanted out of Sony's PlayStation 4 debut tonight. There was no sight of the actual console itself and details about its specific release date and price were also nowhere to be seen.

Sony's team-up with Gaikai is sure to net some interesting ideas and implementations with cloud streaming, the sharing of game screens, remote play and other concoctions, but it was the games themselves that made the biggest impact.

Is the next next-generation console almost here? Wired just received an invitation to “PlayStation Meeting 2013,” a press briefing to be held in New York City on Feb. 20, beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern time. It was accompanied by the cryptic video above and contained no further information.

 A US District Court judge in California has absolved Sony of several charges in a class-action suit that followed the 2011 breach of its PlayStation Network (PSN) and on-demand entertainment service Qriocity.

Judge Anthony Battaglia this month dismissed claims against Sony, which include negligence, unjust enrichment, and bailment, noting in a court order that "none of [the] plaintiffs' current allegations assert willful, intentional, or reckless conduct on behalf of Sony".