The Consumer Electronics Association or CEA has decided to award Ken Kutaragi among others with the CE Hall of Fame award. The ceremony is scheduled to take place this coming October in Las Vegas. Alongside the PlayStation father are 11 others who were trailblazers in the electronics industry. Know more after the jump!

DICE Summit 08 had much to offer with the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, and games such as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, BioShock, and The Orange Box came home as big winners, garnering four awards each.

Individual achievements by Mike Morhaime and Ken Kutaragi were also recognized by The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences. Details in the full article.

It was revealed today that Sony Computer Entertainment Honorary Chairman Ken Kutaragi will be receiving the lifetime achievement award on February next year from the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences or AIAS.

Ken Kutaragi needs no further introduction, having been dubbed as the "Father of the PlayStation brand". He directly supervised and designed the creation of all known PS consoles to date. The full story after the jump!

Izumi Kawanishi, Sony Computer Entertainment's Chief Technical Officer, has moved out of the division and has settled into the mothership Sony Corporation. This is according to one of Kotaku's sources who explains that he and Kazuo Hirai had an internal dispute.

The source continues that the fight was Hirai wanting to push the PlayStation 3 only as a game console. Perhaps Kawanishi still wanted to push the console as an all-in-one media hub?

Sony Computer Entertainment and PlayStation founder Ken Kutaragi, who has retired as SCE's CEO, will receive the 2008 Champion Honoree award from the Electronic Software Association's "A Nite to Unite for Kids" event.

ESA's president Michael Gallagher acknowledged Kutaragi's influence and importance to the gaming industry. "His insight and vision revolutionized in-home entertainment, enabling advancements in creativity, technology, and innovation."

A Nite to Unite for Kids is a fund raising event hosted by the ESA Foundation, and has raised over US$ 7.8 million to date. This year's Nite To Unite event will take place on October 17 at San Francisco's Westin Plaza.

Sony Computer Entertainment President Kazuo Hirai will do the honors of opening this year's Tokyo Game Show with an address titled "The Expanding PlayStation World, Business Strategy For New Growth."

This marks the first time that the man more commonly known as "Kaz" will do a keynote for one of the world's biggest gaming events. Ken Kutaragi, who has already left the Sony fold, did the previous keynote for the consumer electronics giant.

Sony, under Kutaragi's rule, has had a reputation for dropping big news at keynotes in past events. One can only speculate what Hirai has in store in his first TGS outing as SCE's top officer.

Today is the day Ken Kutaragi leaves the PlayStation family behind. Back in April, the gaming industry was shocked with the announcement that the Chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) will step down from his post to "pursue his dreams beyond PlayStation and to accelerate his network vision."

Kutaragi's previously held position will now be manned by SCE's former president and COO Kaz Hirai. The former's departure will also terminate his slot in the the company's board. Despite this, Kutaragi will act as an honorary SCEI Chairman and will be Senior Technology Adviser to Chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation Howard Stringer.

This development could have tremendous impact to Sony itself and more importantly, to its consumer base. Ken Kutaragi is the architect of every single PlayStation console (PSOne, PS2, PS3, and PSP). It would be interesting to watch what exact changes this will bring to Sony's future endeavors.

But for what it is worth, we all know that Kutaragi did his job well throughout these years. We just hope and pray that he finds contentment in what he decides to do next.

Thanks to HELIOS Software and its modified Yellow Dog Linux, it's now possible to use the PS3 as a server. For the price of US$600, small enterprises can now avail of a server with powerful processors and capable HD space just by downloading free software.

Sounds good, right? Not for Sony. It's already a commonly known fact that Sony is losing money for every unit sold. What's keeping them in the fight is the income they can get from games purchased for the PlayStation 3.

Imagine: 1 million PS3 units are being used as servers. That much units would lose profitability because companies using them are not likely to buy games; all the while, Sony loses US$ 250 for every one of those units sold. Count 'em all: US$ 250 million in total.

More PS3s not used for gaming purposes would also put third-party publishers in a bind. If Sony cannot determine how many PS3s are being used as servers, publishers would think twice before investing US$ 20 million in a game that will be released on a platform which installed user-base is uncertain.

People used to wonder what Ken Kutaragi meant back then when he said the PS3 is not just a gaming console. Looks like we've found our answer right here. The PS3 is also a good server machine.

According to a report by David Richards of SmartHouse, a Sony insider hinted that a new version of the PlayStation 3 (a PlayStation 4 as speculated) could be less that 18 months away. The alleged unit will still be powered by the CELL Broadband Engine, but with new features to fully turn it into a powerhouse multimedia unit.

In fact, Sony's former Big Boss and "father of the PlayStation", Ken Kutaragi, has mentioned that the console should now be more integrated into the networked environment, in an unidentified interview earlier last week. He went as far to say that the future game console will be fully "Internet-based."

The insider claim had also included that the console will include an extensive software suite for managing TV content or HD content streamed to the console. This could be the very same rumor that mentioned an extensive and seamless peer-to-peer network that "downloads and instantly plays," as is the technical definition of "streaming."

The new PlayStation unit will sport a different layout for the drive and the attachment area, although there are no other clarifications as to what color or what other enhancements are due for this "PlayStation 4" unit. But going back to his Kutaragi's speech, he had mentioned his view of how the PlayStation console would evolve in later generations.

"The design concept of the Cell processor is the network processor. When the PS3 was introduced last year, the network environment was not ready for a net-based game console. Now it has become possible, so why not enter?" said Kutaragi.

We're not keeping our fingers crossed, but we are keeping our ears and eyes peeled for more developments. Keep tuned in, folks.

---

UPDATE: Spong unplugs the dream drain for this rumor, folks. It seems that Spong got hold of a Sony UK contact and instead of getting the usual "No comment" reply, they got this little brainstormer: "Obviously, this is garbage." Rumor canned? That call is up to you.

The father of the Sony Playstation, SCEI, now chairman">Ken Kutaragi, has given word that he intends on focusing on networks. He told Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily that he sees that a new niche focuses on servers and networks allowing users to "perform large calculations and enjoy content together."

This is not surprising, considering the success of the PS3 in the Folding at Home project. His new position as technological adviser to the CEO of Sony Howard Stringer may actually be advantageous to Kutaragi in this undertaking since he is working closer with the tech-boys at Sony. Kutaragi's plans encompass cell phones and other similar products which have been getting support from SCEI and other parties.

Kutaragi has also noted that "Since I led on networking with the PS3, I think it is my responsibility to push further in that direction." Whether or not this latest venture will pay off is still unknown, although the ground work is already there considering that the databases for his project are already existing. You can read more on this via our read link.