PSLS • News • PlayStation Plus News - PS4, PS3, PS Vita • PS Vita / PlayStation Vita News, Trophies, Reviews, and More • PS3 / PlayStation 3 News, Trophies, Reviews, and More • PS4 News, Trophies, Reviews, and MorePlayStation Store Sales in North America: April 12 to 18, 2016 – LEGO SaleThis week on the PlayStation Store in North America, you’ll find a big LEGO franchise sale, which offers PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation Vita games at a discount, with PlayStation Plus members saving even more.Here’s the games on sale this week through the PlayStation Store, with offers ending on April 19 at around 8am PT/11am ET:LEGO Sale (Sale Price, PlayStation Plus Price)PlayStation 4LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham – $11.99, $9.99LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Deluxe Edition – $20.99, $17.49LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Season Pass – $8.99, $7.49LEGO Jurassic World – $29.99, $27.49LEGO Marvel’s Avengers – $53.99, $47.99LEGO Marvel’s Avengers Deluxe Edition – $62.99, $55.99LEGO Marvel Super Heroes – $7.99, $4.99LEGO The Hobbit – $9.99, $7.99The LEGO Movie Videogame – $10.99, $8.99PlayStation 3LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes – $7.99, $4.99LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham – $11.99, $9.99LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham Season Pass – $7.49, $5.99LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 – $4.99LEGO Jurassic World – $23.99, $21.99LEGO Marvel’s Avengers – $44.99, $39.99LEGO Marvel’s Avengers Deluxe Edition – $53.99
, $47.99LEGO Marvel Super Heroes – $7.99, $4.99LEGO The Hobbit – $9.99, $7.99LEGO Lord of the Rings – $4.99The LEGO Movie Videogame – $10.99, $8.99PlayStation VitaLEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes – $7.99, $4.99LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham – $11.99, $9.99LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7 – $4.99LEGO Jurassic World – $11.99, $10.99LEGO Marvel’s Avengers – $26.99, $23.99LEGO Marvel Super Heroes – $7.99, $4.99LEGO Ninjago: Shadow of Ronin – $11.99, $9.99LEGO The Hobbit – $9.99, $7.99The LEGO Movie Videogame – $10.99, $8.99Other Deals (Sale Price, PS+ Price)AeternoBlade (PS4) – $11.24AeternoBlade (PS Vita) – $11.24Daytona USA (PS3) – $4.99DJMAX Portable 3 (PSP; PS Vita) – $19.99, $10.00Epic Adventures Bundle (PS3) – $14.49, $5.79Gravity Badgers (PS Vita) – $1.49, $0.60Gungnir (PSP; PS Vita) – $9.99Infinity Runner (PS4) – $5.24, $3.49Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble (PSP; PS Vita) – $7.49Knights in the Nightmare (PSP; PS Vita) – $4.94NHL 16 (PS4) – $19.79Persona 4 Arena (PS3) – $9.89Persona 4 Arena Ultimate Edition (PS3) – $14.84Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (PS3) – $14.79Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Ultimate Edition (PS3) – $49.99Square Heroes (PS4) – $2.49, $1.69Stikbold!
(PS4) – $7.99Streets of Rage 2 (PS3) – $3.99Super Hang-On (PS3) – $3.99Toro (PS4) – $10.49, $7.49Ultratron (PS4, PS3, PS Vita) – $2.49Yasai Ninja (PS4) – $9.99, $5.00Yggdra Union (PSP; PS Vita) – $4.99PlayStation Plus DealsDefiance Apex Arkhunter Bundle (PS3) – $79.99Defiance Evolved Arkhunter Bundle (PS3) – $15.99PS4 Pre-OrdersAlienation – $17.99Doom – $53.99 (PS+ members only)Invisible, Inc Console Edition – $17.99*Prices are in USD and may be higher in Canada.Next week, the Launch Party Event franchise sales end with Grand Theft Auto.Essential Reading:10 PS4 F2P Games You Need to PlayTop 5 Reasons Why We Want PS4KQwarktastic – We Rank the Ratchet & Clank SeriesLego Announces Sale Date for Beatles ‘Yellow Submarine’ Set Subscribe to Ultimate Classic Rock on Well, now you know what to get the Beatles fans in your life for Christmas. Lego has announced the impending arrival of the latest in its ongoing Ideas series, and it’s packed with colorful Fab Four fun.
Starting Nov. 1, you’ll be able to purchase Lego’s Yellow Submarine set — a $60 investment that recreates the titular vehicle in detail with more than 550 pieces in all, plus Minifig versions of George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr. Like other sets in the series, Lego’s Yellow Submarine set was approved after gathering 10,000 votes cast at the Ideas website. “It features a functioning propeller and rudder, as well as a set of periscopes that can rotate to different angular positions,” reads the description. “Perhaps the funnest part of this model, however, is that the top cover of the chassis is removable to reveal a cockpit that fits all four minifig Beatles members.” Unsurprisingly, designer Kevin Szeto was motivated by a love of the band’s work. “As an amateur musician and songwriter, I have always been drawn to the music of the Beatles. The creation of the Yellow Submarine model was really my way of showing my affection for the Beatles, as well as trying to pay a small tribute to the Beatles phenomenon,” he explained.
“The Yellow Submarine is bright, fun, and colorful, which also made it a good subject to translate into Lego form.” “I watched the film when I was younger and was really inspired by how it oozed so much imagination – comparable to how I view Lego elements,” added Lego’s Justin Ramsden. “I’m also a massive fan of the Beatles, having grown up with their music all my life, so to see the Beatles in Lego form is a dream come true.” Beatles Albums Ranked Worst to Best Best of Ultimate Classic Rock Foreigner Albums Ranked Worst to Best Rock’s 100 Most Underrated Albums The Best Classic Rock Album From Each Year Since 1966CHICAGO (CBS) — Chicago’s skyline is getting the Lego treatment. The company will soon be selling a Lego set showcasing iconic buildings and attractions, including the Willis Tower and John Hancock, Wrigley and CNA buildings, as well as a tiny Cloud Gate and Michigan Avenue river bridge.
The 444-piece set will sell for $39.99 as part of its Lego Architecture Skyline series. (There is one of New York City already.) Fans can pick up the set, starting on Dec. 11, at the Chicago Architecture Foundation at 224 S. Michigan Ave., the Lego store at Water Tower Place at 835 N. Michigan Ave., and the Legoland in Schaumburg. There are a few notable absences from the set, such at Trump Tower, Marina City and Navy Pier. The Lego Architecture Series started with individual buildings, including the Willis Tower, John Hancock and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie house in Hyde Park. News Via EmailPodcast Network Advertise On Our StreamsSMITH BRAIN TRUST — Demand outstripping supply in North America prompted LEGO to curb promotional activities in the world’s biggest market for toys. First-half sales in 2016, reported on Tuesday, slipped to about $524 million from about $533 million last year. But LEGO says it initiated the downturn to expand its plant capacity and workforce in time to compete for holiday shoppers with rival toymaker Mattel, which LEGO recently surpassed in global sales.
Oliver Schlake, a management and organization professor at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, says one reason for LEGO's success has been the company's ability to connect with diverse audiences who do not outgrow the "toy." Girls within a certain age group play with Mattel's Barbie. But behind its interlocking toy bricks, LEGO breeds a subculture including adult hobbyists and LEGO-certified consultants for Fortune 100 workforces. Cambridge University even has a Lego Professor of Play in Education, Development and Learning. LEGO products, moreover, drive robotics learning customized for elementary schoolchildren as well as university-level engineering students. LEGO products also facilitate creativity and strategy exercises in company training, architectural learning and mind-focusing therapy for persons with disabilities. At the Univeristy of Maryland, Schlake engages his Creative Problem Solving class in an activity called “Five Pieces of LEGOs.”
Through this exercise, he grades the creativity and design of student conceptions from five LEGO pieces, in sets of 12 and ranging from solar panels to a “person squished by falling sheetrock.” “Students sometimes incorporate a back story to an object,” says Schlake, a self-described LEGO hobbyist since he was a 3-year-old in Germany. “It’s a mental challenge. It conditions students to learn by doing (as opposed to absorbing) and being creative and innovative in the process.” Schlake has owned about 400 pounds of LEGOs (derived from Danish expression “leg godt” or “play well”) since childhood, including dozens of LEGO Friends (designed for girls) sets he purchased in recent years for his daughters. In the 1990s, he incorporated LEGO “relaxation” exercises for employees of a startup he operated in Germany. And, a friend and colleague of his is certified as a LEGO Serious Play facilitator. Such specialists are common to large consultancies serving the likes of Google, NASA and Toyota to “facilitate employees using LEGO pieces to create figures that illustrate trouble-shooting and problem-solving, including solutions for restructuring an organization,” Schlake says.
A pair of scientists in Switzerland conceptualized "Serious Play" in 1996. Quartz has described one exercise, for example, as involving manager trainees showing the "difference between manager and leader" via a set of LEGO pieces and under a time constraint. One build, entitled, “Stop having meetings with myself,” depicted its creator seated with a wall built between him and his colleagues. About 10 years ago, LEGO market researchers began studying kids at play, including watching their brain sections illuminate under an MRI while playing with different toys. A key takeaway: Focusing on mastering a skill kept kids most engaged in sustained play. Strategy+Business last spring described this approach as departing from the standard surveys and focus groups, plus “unparalleled in the toy industry” and precipitating LEGO going from skirting bankruptcy to mega-profitability. But Schlake says LEGO’s nostalgic appeal to adults, including parents, plus associating its brand with such franchises as Star Wars and Marvel Comics and its “open innovation” practice (LEGO inviting product ideas from the public and rewarding selected contributors with a percentage of sales)” are equally — if not more — significant success factors.”
Schlake notes that open innovation was an unintended consequence of LEGO Mindstorms software (a “robotics invention system” developed with MIT researchers in a move to reach beyond the children's toy market) getting hacked in 1998 in an orchestrated move by several users who made modifications and added functions. “LEGO considered suing the hackers, but ultimately embraced the action to open-source Mindstorms,” Schlake says. “This was a huge turning point for LEGO and has made Mindstorms increasingly intensive and engaging and widely accessed by schools, especially engineering departments, to teach the basics of robotics,” Schlake says. Businesses also adapt Mindstorms (separately from "Serious Play") for skills training, and the open-sourcing has led to collaborative initiatives with users, including a LEGO Ambassador Network and fostered a small community “master builders," known for producing large and complex models and employed by LEGO to support its attractions at its theme parks and discovery centers.