Bloomberg is reporting that, under pressure from its shareholders, Sony executives and board members have decided to discuss billionaire Daniel Loeb’s proposal for an initial public offering of its entertainment business. Loeb's firm Third Point owns a fair share of Sony stock, giving him some influence over what Sony does.

An interesting story in the New York Times (as unearthed by Develop) reveals that a hedge fund manager that controls billions in investment in Sony has suggested that the company break up parts of the company.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that 23-year-old Todd M. Miller has been sentenced to one year of house arrest for his part in the 2008 security breach of Sony's PlayStation Network. Miller wasn't convicted on charges directly related to the hacking, but for destroying computers the FBI was interested in investigating related to the crime. Miller was sentenced last week.

While Microsoft has earned some good will from the game community this week after a memo revealing that the next Xbox will not require an online connection all the time in order to work, Sony is elbowing its way into the debate by saying that they never considered such an option because most of the world doesn't have perfect internet.

One of Sony's highlighted features when it announced the PlayStation 4 earlier this year is the ability for users to share video and screenshots from games they are playing with their friends, but now Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida says that the inclusion of those features in PS4 games are entirely under the control of the developers who make the games. Developers could opt not to include those features at all or could limit their functionality if they so choose.

Last July South Korea began enforcing a law that would keep teens under the age of 16 from playing games during a six hour block at night. The law was dubbed the "Shutdown Law" and promised strict enforcement and punishment for places where teens go to play online whether that be a cyber cafe or using online services such as the PlayStation Network or Xbox Live.

According to this Bloomberg report Sony executives have agreed to forgo salary bonuses for the second year in a row following another year of less than stellar profits from the electronics giant. According to a Sony spokesperson (speaking to Bloomberg), around 40 of the company's executives will return bonuses scheduled to be paid out following a general shareholders meeting this June.

Cody "Recursion" Kretsinger, the Lulzsec member who pled guilty last April for his part in hacking the Sony Pictures Entertainment website, has been sentenced to one year in jail, ordered to pay $605,663 in restitution, and perform 1,000 hours of community service.

A fourth member of the hacktivist group LulzSec has pled guilty to attacking websites owned by Sony, Nintendo, and News Corp., according to Bloomberg. Ryan Ackroyd entered a guilty plea at a hearing in London today. He will be sentenced on May 14 along with the three other hackers, according to presiding Judge Deborah Taylor.

While some may question the power of the PS4 at retail at the end of this year, retailer GameStop has absolutely no doubt that Sony's next home console system will be very, very popular.

"Although we have been given no official numbers by Sony we do believe that demand will far outpace the supply of this product during the launch window," GameStop president Tony Bartel recently told investors.

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan and Sony Computer Entertainment Asia have been consolidated into one business unit operating within Sony, according to this press release - as uncovered by Kotaku. The combined operation will now be called Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia.

Fans of Level-5's 2010 RPG White Knight Chronicles will be sad to hear that Sony is pulling the plug on online game servers June 18. A tweet about the same thing happening to White Knight Chronicles 2 online servers from the official PlayStation Twitter account was tweeted but has since disappeared.

The controversial God of War: Ascension trophy "Bros before Hos" will be renamed to "Bros Before Foes" via a day-one update, according to a statement sent to Joystiq by developer Sony Santa Monica. The trophy caused a bit of a controversy last week when Adam Sessler and other complained about its sexist nature.

Update: PlayStation Lifestyle has an extensive trophy list (may contain spoilers) that lists the "Bros before Hos" trophy being earned by escaping the "Fury ambush," and not by simply curb stomping a Fury.

Sony has decided to unload its holdings in mobile game developer and publisher DeNa, according to this Reuters report. Sony has reportedly sold all of its shares in the company to Japanese-based investment firm Nomura Securities for $438 million.

The PlayStation 4 will not be backwards compatible.

Got a bunch of PS3, PS2, or PS1 games?  Too bad, bucko!  You won't be able to play them on the PS4 when it launches this fall.  Oh, you can probably jam those disks into the console but that's about as far as you're going to get.  Heck, all those PSN titles you bought?  Nope, not going to be able to play those either.

How does that make you feel?

Last week we asked you to categorize your level of excitement for the PlayStation 4 - prior to all the details coming out of Sony's two-hour long press event. Exactly 504 votes were cast, with those of you looking for more information being beat out slightly by those who didn't seem to be interested in what Sony has planned with its next-generation console.

A patent filed for in 2011 by Sony Computer Entertainment America (and unearthed last week by web site Dark Zero) uses load times to determine if software being loaded into a system is legitimate or pirated.

The patent, "BENCHMARK MEASUREMENT FOR LEGITIMATE DUPLICATION VALIDATION," is described as follows in the patent application:

On this week's show we try a live Google + Hangout - something we plan on doing once in awhile so our fans can interact with us more directly. Hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight are joined by James Fudge to talk about Sony's two-hour long PlayStation 4 Press Conference and the sad news of layoffs at IGN, GameSpy, UGO and 1UP. Download it now: SuperPAC Episode 42 (1 hour, 14 minutes) 189 MB.

If you have ever left your PS3 untouched for a long period of time, chances are that the next time you turn it on you'll have to download and install a firmware update. The problem with this has always been that you can do nothing while this is happening - and if your connection is spotty at times - waiting for it to download can take what seems like an eternity.

Engadget is reporting that the new PlayStation 4 console from Sony will not allow you to transfer all of those PlayStation Network games you might have purchased on the PS3. Sony admitted last night that current-generation PSN titles won't be playable on the system because architecture of the Power-PC-based PS3 and x86-64 based AMD processor powering the PlayStation 4 are so different.

The PlayStation 4 will not require an internet connection, though it is likely that if you want to take advantage of some of its core features and frequent updates you'll need a connection at some point. According to Eurogamer Sony says that, while you may want to keep your console connected to the internet to take advantage of the system's new features, it is not a requirement.

Eurogamer delivers bit of good news this evening from Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida: the PlayStation 4 will not block used games. Catching up with Yoshida a few hours after last night's two-hour PS4 press conference, Eurogamer asked him directly if Sony had any plans to block used games on its newest console:

At a two hour press conference this evening, Sony Computer Entertainment officially unveiled its next-generation console, the PlayStation 4. Sony revealed a few details (without getting into specifics) about the PS4 hardware at the start of the press event. It contains what the company called a "supercharged PC architecture," an x86-64 AMD processor and 8GB of GDDR5 unified system memory.

Sony's ass-numbingly long PlayStation 4 blowout is finally over!

So what did you all think?

Are you excited?  Are you cautiously optimistic?  Does your apathy towards Sony's new console know no bounds?

Please vote in our poll then fill the comments section and our inbox (SuperPACpodcast@gmail.com) with your opinions and thoughts on the show.  What are you most excited about?  What are you most concerned about?  Did you watch the entire 2-hour presentation at work?  Does your boss know?

Tonight is the night that Sony will make some sort of announcement about the future of the PlayStation brand. Some speculate that it will be more details on their next system, commonly referred to as the "PS4." Hopefully there will be some other surprises like game announcements, new features for the technology they already have on the market now and - with any luck - a price cut to the North American and European versions of the PS Vita hand-held - which currently cost as much as a brand new PS3.

DealNews, a web site dedicated to bringing you all the latest news on all the hottest items past and present makes a pretty bold prediction: After Sony makes its big announcement (it is presumed) about the PlayStation 4, the PlayStation 3 will see a price drop of 64 percent at retail. They base this price drop percentage on historical retail data for the PS3 versus the PS2 and the Wii U versus the Wii. Here is the crux of the argument:

Why did Microsoft enter the console market in 2001 with the original Xbox? Well, if you believe former VP of Windows Sales at Microsoft Joachim Kempin, the company jumped into the market because it wanted to "stop" Sony.

Entertainment reviews aggregation site Metacritic has published its 2012 publisher rankings, ranking Electronic Arts at the top of the list, followed by Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and Capcom. The rankings use each publisher's game scores to determine the order.

EA was helped by Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Mass Effect; Microsoft came in second with the help of Mark of the Ninja; followed by Sony with Journey; Nintendo with Xenoblade Chronicles for Wii; and Capcom with Okami HD and Dragon's Dogma - both for PS3.

There's a lot of speculation today that Sony will unveil the PlayStation 4 at an event scheduled for February 20. Yesterday Sony put out a video encouraging viewers to "see the future" at an event it plans to host in New York City at the end of this month.