Sony has chosen 12 individuals and organisations to help fuel the PlayStation 3's marketing push in the UK, Media Guardian reports.

According to the paper the 12, who range from club promoters, artists, fashion industry insiders, Dazed & Confused magazine and the BBC's 1Xtra, have been given a free hand by Sony to "create original content inspired by key characteristics of the PS3."

Each of Sony's chosen 12 will then distributed content digitally across a wide range of outlets including social networks such as MySpace, websites, blogs, e-mail and their own contacts.

According to SCE UK marketing man Alan Duncan, 'traditional' avenues of avertising and PR aren't enough to communicate the PS3's appeal: "The idea is to use physical space, blogs and other forms of digital networking to inform, entertain and encourage interaction and debate about all the different things the PS3 can do."

Of course Sony recently used the same strategy to market the PSP - the infamous 'all I want for Christmas is a PSP' campaign comes to mind - which didn't exactly manage to send Sony's handheld flying off the shelves.

Rana Reeves, director of Shine Communications which developed the digital strategy with Sony, tells the Guardian "Traditionally, brand communication with consumers has been channelled via an ad agency. The explosion of social networks and blogging, however, has created a seismic shift. Brands wanting to enter this world have to be prepared to trust consumers to talk about them whether the comment is good or bad."

via cvg ...

via cvg

As well as showing off the nice art style of the Prince of Persia games, these five new hi-res screens give a further insight into how the ninja Prince will be controlled using the Wii Remote and Nunchuk.

As you can work out in the images, the Prince's normal attacks are performed by slashing the Wii Remote and Nunchuk (the latter only when he has a weapon in each hand).

The screenshot that shows Dark Prince hanging from the ceiling strangling the enemy below with his lethal Daggertails is demonstrating the game's stealthy Speed Kills. Just get near an enemy without being noticed you and you can flick the Nunchuk downwards to execute the Speed Kill, which kills them instantly and saves you the hassle of a full-blown scrap.

Prince of Persia Rival Swords, coming to Wii on March 30, is a direct port of The Two Thrones, which previously released on PS2, Xbox and GameCube game in 2005. Yes, THAT long ago.

Screens Via Comments ...

via gamespot

Earlier this month, during a meeting with Codemasters, we were afforded our first look at the Wii version of Heatseeker. Also in development for the PlayStation 2 and the PlayStation Portable, Heatseeker is an action-oriented flight combat game from the same studio responsible for 2005's Heroes of the Pacific. The PS2 and Wii versions of Heatseeker will purportedly be almost identical, although the latter is made more interesting by its support of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controller.

While Heroes of the Pacific was set during World War II, Heatseeker will task you with combating modern-day terrorists from the controls of more than 20 different planes, including some of the latest fifth-generation fighters. The F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II planes that we saw during our demo were nicely detailed, and in keeping with Heatseeker's arcade-style gameplay, both had an unlimited supply of ammo. In addition to a machine gun, each plane will be able to carry two different types of missiles or bombs, and you'll get to choose which heavy weapons you go into battle with according to the type of mission that you're about to attempt.

Although dogfighting will obviously play a large part in the game, your mission objectives in Heatseeker will include escorting friendly craft, protecting structures, and, of course, destroying enemy units and other targets. Adding further variety to certain missions will be the addition of two wingmen for you to command, the need to identify targets before being given permission to engage them, and operational ceilings that prevent you from flying your chosen fighter into space or from popping up on enemy radar. Many of the missions in Heatseeker will task you with completing multiple objectives, so after defending a runway or an aircraft carrier from enemy bombers, for example, you might then be required to escort the planes that take off from it to their objective.

Heatseeker's mission objectives promise to be quite varied.
The Wii version of Heatseeker will support the same conventional control setup that's used on the PS2, but it's certainly a game that appears to lend itself to the Wii's unique motion-sensitive controllers. There are two different Wii-exclusive control setups available, letting you choose which part of the Wii's unique two-piece controller you use to fly your plane. The most popular control option during our demo was undoubtedly the one that will let you tilt the Nunchuk controller to steer your plane while using its analog stick to control the throttle, brake, and roll. The Wii Remote's directional pad is used to switch weapons, the A button is used to switch between active targets, and the trigger buttons on the Wii Remote and the Nunchuk are used to fire missiles and machine guns, respectively. The second motion-sensitive controls option works in much the same way, except that the Wii Remote is used to move an icon around the screen that your plane will always point toward.

Although the Wii version of Heatseeker that we were looking at was clearly still quite early (as evidenced by onscreen instructions telling us how to play using PS2 controls), it already looks quite impressive. The clouds that float around many of the environments look convincing, and the explosions of enemy fighters that you'll occasionally get to enjoy from the perspective of an "impact cam" mounted on a missile's nose are quite spectacular.

Both the PS2 and Wii versions of Heatseeker will support only solo play, but the PSP game will feature wireless competitive gameplay modes for up to four players. All three versions of Heatseeker are currently scheduled for release in March. We look forward to bringing you more information on the game as soon as it becomes available. ...

Reesy has released a new version of his rather excellent Snes emulator for the GP2X:

Heres whats new:

"No major changes. I've replaced the timer code which should mean that the FPS monitor will not lock up anymore."

Download and Give feedback Via Comments ...

New release from Creebo

Hello everybody!
I am submitting my firmware replacement for the DS called CreeboMe. This is an alternative to FWNitro or FlashMe by having a stylish menu added to boot either a DS Card, Homebrew Device, or a GBA Cart.

NOTE: To flash use the same methods as FlashMe and FWNitro. I will take no responsibility to a bad firmware flash. If you are not confident about flashing your firmware, use the rom instead, however the DS Card Option will NOT work on the rom version. Also this is only a beta version and as you can tell it does not have many feature. But not to worry! I am confident on keeping this project alive. Thanks to Loopy for the base firmware replacement, and all of the guys in #dsdev for all of the wonderful help. If you cannot get the homebrew button to work, the failsafe is A+B+SELECT+START.

The file can be downloaded here, my advice is to wait for others to say its perfect before using, bricking your DS could be a reality if things go wrong. ...

New from Bug


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

New from Campanile


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

New from Bassacegold:

Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...

New release from sumiguchi


Download and Give Feedback Via Comments ...