Sony recently launched accusations against Hotz for registering ‘blickmaniac’ as a PSN account name, although the defendant claimed not to have registered an account at all. Hotz’ lawyers suggested a mismatch of the PlayStation serial numbers, while another person has claimed to be the owner of the same account.

The PSN accounts debate is considered as important, as Sony centers its arguments around the allegation that George Hotz had accepted the terms of service for the PSN. The defendant’s lawyers claim that the terms refer only to software and have been created after the moment of the accusations related to the opening of an account by Hotz.

The filing says that the only way Sony tries to demonstrate Hotz’ ownership of the ‘blickmaniac’ account is an authenticated blog posting where a certain individual attempts to sell an unlocked phone that is also on sale at major retailers like Amazon. At the same time, a search for ‘blickmaniac’ leads to a blog posting where a person with the name ‘eepog’ acknowledges being the owner of the account and claims that the PSN account had been created by him.

The jailbreaker’s attorneys also argue that SCEA is not capable of justifying the request for jurisdiction in California, based on the download locations. They suggest pursuing the trial in New Jersey, because Hotz is a young person and certainly does not have the financial resources of a corporation.

They say that SCEA filed the action and claimed jurisdiction in California and afterwards used its lawyers and employees to offer misleading and ambiguous information. According to the lawyers, the company also indicated that jurisdiction in California would be proper for Hotz through jurisdictional discovery. They continued by saying that after the defendant’s computer hard drives as well as a graphing calculator have been confiscated and his discovery responses timely submitted, SCEA is still unable to bring evidence proving that the jurisdictional challenges asserted by Hotz were false. In their opinion, SCEA only continued to provide a flood of dubious information like irrelevant blog postings or misleading declarations coming from some enigmatic employees who did not explain which were the sources of their personal knowledge.

Another accusation the attorneys made against Sony is for using abusive discovery documents and trying to harass George Hotz.

Apart the core accusations related to DMCA violations, Sony’s recent filings accused Hotz of the removal of some parts from hard drives that were involved in the case and of departing to South America with the intention of interfering with the discovery process.

Koller credited a wide range of gaming software often connected with motion controllers, including 24 games, some of them “serious” or family games. Microsoft’s impending Kinect will be centered on casual games, because its camera-only system is sometimes not as precise as it is needed for shooting games or similar ones.

The win would be a very important event for Sony. The PS3 sales numbers of the company are unknown because the NPD has preferred to mask the information, with the exception of corporate customers, but the situation has been improving slowly, as far as higher capacities and better prices have joined the lineup. Nintendo, with its Wii successful, has seen its sales dropping even after game bundles and price cuts.

Motions permitting Sony to serve subpoenas and deposition notices were granted by US District Judge. They can be addressed to third party known to be involved in the sale or distribution of the PS Jailbreak software, such as OpenPSJailbreak, PSFreedom and PSGroove, as well as others who would have knowledge of the sale or distribution of such software.

Sony was recently granted an injunction in Australian courts, which would serve as a temporary ban on PS Jailbreak distribution and would last until a final decision would be made. It is known that hackers have open-sourced the code quickly and have begun to offer it as PSFreedom and the other forms that were named in the lawsuit. A redesigned version of the code is meant to work from smartphones such as Palm Pre and Nokia N900.

Meanwhile, the legal team of Sony goes on with fighting jailbreaking in the courts and the developers of the company work to shut the security exploit through updates of PS3 firmware. Consequently, the version 3.42 is said to disable phone-based software and the PS Jailbreak USB stick.

The update also brings remote play from a PC and is supposed to provide future models of VAIO computers with the possibility of steering certain functions of the PS3 over a local network. Sony’s plans are to explain the new feature on the VAIO page next month. The remote play has previously been only an option for the PS3.

The release date for the new features is not known at this moment, but it is likely to be scheduled later this year. PlayTV is thus far available only in a few countries: Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand and United Arab Emirates. It is the first official TV tuber for the PlayStation3 and allows users to record Freeview broadcasts through its dual DVB-T tuners. Record and output for 1,080-pixel are supported. PlayTV also includes a program guide and the service is available for users’ access through the Remote Play function from their PSPs.

The mentioned law places the burden of customer satisfaction on the retailer and not on the manufacturer. In case Amazon will have to pay more refunds, it will certainly have to discuss this aspect with Sony. There is also a possibility that Sony brings back Other OS compatibility. In case it does not and the problem gets more serious, the company may go to court. If this happens, Sony has a single argument to oppose to dissatisfied owners by saying that the firmware update installation is optional.

As in the United States the consumer protection laws are not so far-reaching, owners who are not content with the update have the only option of getting justice through a class action lawsuit.

Another option for those who want to enable Other OS functionality on their consoles can also look for eventual hacks.

The current situation shows Nintendo’s Wii to hold the lead. PS3 and Xbox 360 are believed to continue to become stronger, analysts forecasting Sony’s console as becoming the largest platform by 2013. Recent reports present PS3 sales eventually hitting 127 million devices and Wii reaching sales of 103 million units.

Inherent uncertainty is shown by Strategy Analytics when it comes to predicting sales rates for years ahead. Microsoft’s Xbox could sell beyond expectations thanks to Project Natal. At the same time, the motion-based controller of Sony and the planned 3D upgrades may push the PS3 ahead of predicted figures.

The holiday shopping season in December has shown record sales numbers for both Wii and PS3 consoles, with 1.31 million and 3.8 million units, respectively. Overall sales for all brands, however, were down six percent from the previous year, despite the successful winter season. The descending trend is believed to continue this year, SA predicting a further nine percent decline.

For Sony the win is symbolic. Its console sales trail those of Microsoft and Nintendo, but the PS3 continues to be one of the most popular media players for living rooms and has become a default Blu-ray player, although its Internet movie service is less popular than iTunes or the Zune Video Marketplace on the Xbox 360. The console recently added Netflix streaming and has benefited from price cuts, becoming more competitive with Apple TV, Xbox 360 and other devices that had lower prices.

The expansion opens new opportunities to similar deals at other locations and potentially promises other movie services. Studios have been reluctant to agree high definition movie sales and rentals as they potentially generate cut into Blu-ray sales that are still expected to take over from DVDs in a near future. Many studios have extended deals with a series of movie retailers potentially threatened by online-only users. Sony has a partial conflict of interest as it has been the creator and supporter of Blu-Ray.

EA Sports Active 2.0 is based on three phases and is a nine-week program. New mini-programs can be added in order to keep users motivated. The software will be ready sometime in the fall, but prices are not yet announced.

Infinitec claims that their new drive will be compatible to Windows, Mac OS X and also Linux. It is also very possible that content could be streamed between the IUM and game consoles, like PS3, Xbox 360 or Nintendo Wii.

Despite the fact that the IUM has no memory storage on its own, it receives a signal and also content through a Wi-Fi connection. A strong feature for Infinitec’s new drive is the plug-and-play operation, as there is no need in installing any software or drivers and it doesn’t have to be paired with the PC.

Infinitec’s new IUM device doesn’t have a fixed release date yet. Its price is also unknown, but some extra information about the product is expected around March 1st.