To be honest, I am surprised this took so long!

As many reviews have suggested, the first batch of PS3 games are under performers when compared to their xbox360 incarnations. For anybody who has been paying attention to the games industry over the past six months, this won’t be a surprise. 1up argues though, that by following Sony’s PR trail over the last year and a half, Sony proclaimed that the next-gen did not start until the PS3 appeared. So why is there no difference? The article doesn’t seem to have much of a point other to highlight Sony’s “foot-in-mouth” syndrome, but the images and videos make interesting viewing, even if they do little more than highlight just how similar the games look.

Notable improvements can be found in Ridge Racer 7 (but to be fair this is pretty much Ridge Racer 6 with an extra year of development), Fight Night Round 3 (again, an xbox360 game with 6 months extra development), Full Auto 2 (again, think Full Auto + one year development), Marvel Ultimate Alliance (the PS3 version looks slightly cleaner) and Blazing Angels (another 360 port with 9 months extra development time).

For all this article shows though, these are still launch games. I expect that, in the same way that 360 titles from this year are much better looking than last year, PS3 titles next year will blow us away. Think back to the very poor Ridge Racer V that launched with PS2 and expect PS3 titles to develop along similar lines as developers harness the machine more efficiently. The first of game to show this off, in my opinion, should be Motorstorm (now delayed in Japan until 15 December).

1up- What the Cell is going on?

This article mentions a bunch of things we want from the next firmware update for the PS3 from Sony. Things like the following:

• Background Downloads
• Themes
• Screen Savers
• Music Playing while Doing Stuff
• See PC Files from PS3
• Guitar Hero Support

This is just a small sampling. I hope that Sony is listening, because we all want things like background downloads and better networking support. Is Sony working on these things? Or others?

ATTN: SONY. What we want in future firmware updates.

So just what is the competition up to? You can see some Halo 3 screenshots at the link below. They look quite nice, actually. Some of them look more like something from Unreal Tournament, I’m looking forward to playing the game at my friends’ places, because I’m sure they’ll both be picking it up. Halo 2 was a lot of fun, and we especially had a lot of fun playing King of the Hill.

MUST SEE: 17 new Halo 3 screens

Like I promised, today is Tuesday and I’m announcing the winners of the HDMI cable contest brought to you by this site and eHDMI.com. The winners were chosen with a random number generator, but their names both happen to start with a ‘D’. Here they are:

Dingo
dogday

Congratulations to both of you. I will be forwarding your e-mail addresses on to eHDMI.com, who will take care of contacting you for you shipping information. Congrats, I think this was a fun contest!

Yesterday TerraSoft announced the availability of Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 for the PS3.

THE WAIT IS OVER!
Six months of design, engineering, integration, and testing has culminated in
the finest release from Terra Soft to date. Designed, not just assembled,
Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 featuring E17 is immediately available via YDL.net
Enhanced accounts for your PLAYSTATION(R)3.

I’m still undecided about Linux. I have to see a real reason to install Linux on my PS3 before I bother to do so. How about you guys? Linux? Or no Linux?

YDL v5.0 for the PS3 launches!

I thought we could make a list of all PS3Blog.net reader Online ID’s.

Here’s what we have so far, using the form “PS3 OnlineID = PS3Blog.net Name” (if they’re different).

Blackstaffer = Henning
xBerserker = Tosh Hatch
NashTheSlash = Darrin
shime_waza = Gary (w00t!)

mnm
Kamesen
joefuu
KNIGHTHAWK = Bruce
Edgecrusher = eeyeats
Nauren = ehandlr
Nuvalo = Bwana
Tekneek12 = Sam
YoDaddy
Rather
SolidSlug = Dingo
bunnyhero
LinuxUser = azote
Brad_Woolard
Marcelo
Fardoche = Francois
REAL8ball = marvin
IMACGeek = Alex
Dammenion = Sporty
PSN = jamisonfitz
Surreal
nourbaz = Nour Baz
The_Legend = Alex
Jason_ = Jason
TommyGun90
GOHAN-BALLIN
TommyGun90 = TommyGun
kadafi = travis
Phaethon = Phaethon60
ryanjorunner = Greg
HoleNone = matt
skootie
mcloki
Johnson20
Burten
rhomello = art
BADTriP = OP
Amish_Gramish = AmishGramish
ss4_zohair1
dobisskill
freedesign = freedesign420
dawogfather = tom romano
Trieloth = MetalProxy
abody_abosy = abody
BABYSHAQ105
wingman22 = Tim
Dman2000000 = Derrick
Lifendz
fakesnake
skatepunk123
ENIGMA39 = ENIGMA
JONPHX=JON
chrysostom
Jem123 = jemil
Borten = Burten
TheWretched = Segitz
bassgenerator = bamf
Ozzy_bulgera
Solid-Fox1 = Fox
boffin92 = boffin
abccba
sean2521 = sean
redXlled = redx
Super_Gx = SuperGee
D-LAW
WARRIC
MJPamuru
SincereXai
yagmursuz
fun4fun
mistapaul
BloodPhoenix
Difato
LAMAR1012
wackeyeddie = eddiewright
ARES001
Machine_Titan
quiet_ jedi
rjcc = RjccVIII
ARES001
Qualabala
chapon_14
abc123cguy
Wolfey01
xavier11494
weedman90
SCIAN
agnarok121
Soild_Nat
Mustafa-HF
Andamansea1992
derrickgott007
awamia
KON7650
NYCBX
breakindown
heyli
coffmad
alisound = alisound
WINCH007
rbeckham
D-Rock503
GAboi_ghost

Please reply to this post with your OnlineID, and I’ll add it to the list above.

Recent rumours point to this getting a (typical) Polyphony delay, with latest information suggesting a launch around next December; there’s no noise from Sony as of yet, but we’ll keep you informed. In the meantime check out these new shots of an incredibly detailed Subaru Impreza and its driver. You certainly cannot argue with Polyphony Digital’s dedication to accuracy, even if they do play tardy too often (where’s my GT4 Mobile?!)!

Gamebrink