The official press release from Sony:

E3, LOS ANGELES, Calif., July 16, 2008 – Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) held its E3 media reception this evening at the Viceroy Hotel, Santa Monica, with David Reeves, President of SCEE, providing a European perspective on the announcements made at the Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) press conference yesterday.

“We have been listening to our customers and are pleased to be able to answer one of their key requests”, said David Reeves, President, SCEE. “There is more downloadable content than ever before, with the emphasis moving towards user generated content, something clearly seen this week in LittleBigPlanet™. When you add this to the already compelling entertainment offering on PS3, where you can store games, music, videos and pictures, the extra storage becomes invaluable.”

Listening huh? What about the cries for backwards compatibility to be brought back? Not that I care as I have a 60GB PS3 but I never play PS2 games on it anyway.

The Platinum range for the PS3 will hit Europe on August 1st (day before my birthday, what a coincidence ). Confirmed titles are Heavenly Sword (SCEE), MotorStorm™ (SCEE), Ratchet and Clank™: Tools of Destruction (SCEE), Uncharted: Drakes Fortune (SCEE), Virtua Tennis (Sega), Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft) and WWE Smackdown Vs Raw 08 (THQ).

Smackdown Vs Raw 08 hasn’t got a confirmed release date yet. The games will be priced at 30 Euros.

Here are the picks for this week. Anything for you?

* 10,000 B.C.
* House of Fury
* Persepolis
* Rossini: La Cenerentola
* Step Into Liquid
* Tchaikovsky: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 3
* The Spiderwick Chronicles
* ZZ Top: Live from Texas

Blu-ray.com

If you can’t view the video go here

This looks like a interesting idea, not sure if this is real or not though. We’ll probably find out at E3 soon enough. I think it would be fun if it’s applied correctly. But I don’t want every game to turn into a Wii game either.

[Update]

Seems the video is 2 years old. But we do know that Sony is working on a motion controller of some sort.

PS3 Wii Break-Apart Controller is Two Years Old

There’s an interesting article over at Ars Technica, where they basically re-review the PS3 as it is now, compared to how it was when it was launched back in November 2006.

To cut a long story short, Ars Technica originally gave the PS3 a 6. Now, however, after Sony have updated the PS3 with Firmware update after Firmware update which has resulted in improved Blu-ray player thanks to Blu-ray profile 2.0 (amongst other things), a new and improved PS Store, the release of the Dual Shock 3 (STILL not available in Europe BTW) and most importantly of all; a more varied line up of quality games (both Blu-ray and via PSN).

As a result, Ars Technica have given the PS3 a 9.

If I had to do a review of the PS3 as it is in it’s current form, I’d probably give it an 8 (which is what I would give it if I had reviewed it when I got it back in March 2007).

Now, I’m not saying the PS3 hasn’t improved since I’ve had it but my issue is with what areas has the PS3 improved upon and their relevance to me.

A lot of the improvements that Ars Technica point out hold little relevance to me as a PS3 owner. Blu-ray profile 2.0? Meh. I don’t own many Blu-ray films (Spider-man Trilogy, Casino Royale and Planet Earth are all that I own) so my interest in the PS3 as a Blu-ray player is lukewarm at best.

Dual Shock 3? I would buy one but Sony haven’t released it in Europe yet. Awesome. And no, I’m not willing to import it, I shouldn’t have to.

The PS Store has a new look but the content is still lacking. I love Super Stardust: HD and PixelJunk Monsters, they are two of my favourite PS3 games, but Sony still falls short in providing meaningful content on a weekly basis, especially on the UK/EU Stores.

Where is Shivering Isles? Where is Commandos 3? Where is WipEout? Elephunk? Where are all the PSOne games that Sony could make a killing from if they bothered to make them available? Why can’t Sony combine the US and UK Stores, we both speak the same language (of sorts )! Localisation should not be an issue in that sense.

My main issue with PS3 games in the past was with the crappy ports that we were fed but that situation is less of an issue (although not totally eradicated) at this present time.

The areas where I feel Sony has failed to improve upon (aside from what I’ve already mentioned) are PSN related, such as the lack of in-game XMB access, customisable soundtracks and the ability to chat to your friends regardless of what you are doing or what games you are playing.

The forthcoming release of Firmware 2.40 should solve some of those issues but Sony still has a lot of work to do to realise the PS3’s full potential.

I’m very happy with my PS3 but I can see where Sony needs to make improvements and I haven’t even touched upon the backwards compatibility issue, various HDD sizes for different regions, their PR shenanigans and the need for price cuts etc.

To answer my own question of whether I think the PS3 has evolved since I got it, my answer would have to be no, not in the areas that matter to me.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with Ars Technica and my views?

The only two major things I want are customisable soundtracks and access to read/write messages in-game. It would be nice to have universal voice chat (starting from the chat lobby and moving from game to game or chatting to friends who are playing different games) but it’s not that important to me compared to say Henning.

PS3 TEST Firmware v2.40 Preview!

I don’t mind advertisements in game as long as it fits well. For sports games, racing games, etc. This is perfect and I don’t mind at all. For example in Burnout Paradise, there is a Gillette van that drives around the city, I find it funny actually.

Even if a game takes place in a city and there are ads, like there would be in a real city, that’s fine. But if it starts to invade action or fantasy games where it isn’t appropriate than I’m very against that.

The ads will also be dynamic so they can be changed at any time as well. But if this makes the PS3 more attractive to developers then I’m for it. Just don’t go overboard with it Sony.

Sony announces in-game advertising possibilities; EA jumps on board

I was prepared to sell my 60GB PS3 to get this bundle. But it’s a 40GB PS3 … booo Konami. We want a 80GB PS3, oh, well. At least I have the MGS4 LE Game bundle pre-ordered.

If you want the bundle you can pre-order on Monday May 19th at Konami.com. Details below:

It comes with the Gun Metal Gray PLAYSTATION 3 system with a 40GB hard drive, the bundle also includes a matching DUALSHOCK 3 wireless controller.

The MGS4 LE game box contains: The Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots game, which includes Metal Gear Online, enabling you to take part in the ultimate multiplayer squad based tactical shooter. An exclusive Blu-ray disc including over 2 hours of additional content - “Hideo Kojima’s Gene”, a behind-the-scenes vision of Hideo Kojima’s production team & game and “The Making of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots” documentary. As well as, the official Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots CD Soundtrack, including 16 never-before-released tracks by Harry Gregson-Williams (Shrek, Armageddon, The Rock), Nobuko Toda, and Ennio Morricone.

MGS4 Limited Edition PS3 Hardware Bundle Details!

Last weekend I was in Walmart looking for an easy-to-use digital camera for my daughter. I walked past the Wii display and it looked like there were some boxes there. Surely, these must be some peripheral or somesuch, because I’d never seen Wii’s at Walmart since… well… ever! But no, these were the real deal. About seven of them.

So I picked one up, and Wii Play too for the extra controller. My wife and I had discussed this earlier, and we thought it would be a fun gaming system for her and the kids.

So we got it home and I neglected it for a bit so that I can play with my kids outside. My daughter was more interested in the new digital camera than the Wii, and ditto goes for my other daughter and son. Eventually I set up the system and got things running. And you know what? The kids enjoyed creating the Miis but soon lost interest. That was a disappointment.

But luckily since then things have improved. They’ve been playing it more and more, so I don’t feel like I just wasted hundreds of dollars. Whew!

But now that I had a Wii, I thought I’d look into the games some more (though I already had a general idea) to see if there’s anything that I would want to play. I know lots of people love the Mario games like Mario Kart, but they’ve never held my interest. I’ll play them, but only because we’re at Steve’s that evening and everyone else likes playing them. (Sorry Steve.)

So anyway, I’ve searched far and wide, and I found only one Wii title (that’s not available on my PS3) that piqued my interest. Boom Blox! That game looks like a lot of fun. I’ll give it a rent, and if I like it, I might just pick it up.

Now I need to find a game or two that my daughters (7 and 5, both with a low tolerance for failure) and son (2) will enjoy…

The video below was created and uploaded to YouTube from within a PS3 game. This could have some great potential. Imagine a cool moment in a game that you wish you could have recorded and shared with your friends. Now you can if the game supports it. Right now only this game supports it at the moment.

Check out NeoGAF and start at post 58.

Somebody noticed something very interesting in a recent PSN video. Video downloads shown on the PlayStation Store. We knew this was coming, but maybe this is coming sooner than we think? It has options for NBC, HBO, the CW, Cartoon Network, MTV, and more. Some other things in the video are: “Click Start to Search”, “Click Square to Add to Cart”, “View Downloads”, and a Beta section.

But then again they showed the Home icon in PlayStation videos before and now that’s pushed back until November. So take this with a huge grain of salt.

Video Downloads Finally Coming to PLAYSTATION 3?

It’s a brief look at actual gameplay, hard to see the quality due to the poor video. But it looks good, some new weapons too. I’m very interested in the multiplayer aspect of R2 as well.

This month we’ve got an exclusive interview with MotorStorm 2’s Game Director Nigel Kershaw, and the first ever screens. It’s the first time these have been available online, so put down those crappy scans and enjoy them how they’re meant to be seen!

As well as that we’ve got a huge retrospective feature on the history of GTA, and of course a 4 page review of the game everyone’s talking about. But of course that’s not all. With heaps of reviews and previews there’s plenty to keep you going in Issue 7.

We’ve also integrated video streaming directly into the magazine, so you can check out the latest footage and trailers while flicking through. Please bear in mind you’ll need QuickTime and the latest version of Adobe Reader to use those.

It’s worth downloading Issue 7 for the MotorStorm 2 interview and screens alone but it’s packed with quality production throughout. It really does put most on the shelf magazines to shame.

Please leave any feedback in the comments.

Download Issue 7 Here

Lots of content this week. I’ll be picking up Echochrome for the PS3. It’s a still at $9.99. And I’m curious to see what the level creator is like

Games/Demos:
-Echochrome - $9.99 (includes 56 levels unique to the PS3 version and a level creator)
-Echochrome (PSP) - $9.99 (includes 56 levels unique to the PSP version and a level creator)
-Dark Sector Demo

DLC:
Rock Band tracks - $1.99 each:
-The Mother Hips – “Red Tandy” (master)
-The Mother Hips – “Time Sick Son of a Grizzly Bear” (master)
-Smashing Pumpkins – “Zero” (master)

Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore downloadable songs ($1.49 each)

Trailers:
-Battlefield Bad Company Redford Blog
-Kung Fu Panda Trailer
-Dead Space Announcement Trailer
-Dead Space Ship Date Trailer
-Turok - “Kane” Gameplay Trailer
-Turok “Bring It” Trailer
-NBA Ballers: Chosen One TV Spot
-Wyclef’s “Fast Car” Music Video

Wallpapers:
-echochrome Wallpapers (x4)
-Kung Fu Panda Wallpapers (x3)

Games/Demos:
-Ape Quest (PSP) - €9.99 / £6.99
-Ape Quest (PSP) demo

DLC:
-NFS ProStreet - Car Packs (all contain different cars)
–Bugatti Veyron - €2.99 / £1.99
–McLaren F1 - €2.99 / £1.99
–Extender Pack #1 - €4.99 / £3.49
–Extender Pack #2 - €4.99 / £3.49

-Snakeball - Team Pack - €2.99 / £1.99

Trailers:
-Kane & Lynch - “Map Pack”

Other:
-Dark Sector theme
-Haze theme
-Haze wallpapers
-Rainbow Six Vegas 2 theme

Games/Demos:
-Battle Fantasia demo

DLC:
-Call of Duty 4 - Map Pack 1 - ¥1000

Trailers:
-Fifa Street 3
-Motorstorm Complete

NeoGAF

SPOILER ALERT, SPOILER ALERT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

! x 100 and I love the ending