The excellent Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars is this week's headline attraction on the European PlayStation Store.

Our praise-laden review should convince you that £29.99 is an asking price worth parting with, unless you want the UMD, which is inevitably cheaper.

Elsewhere, you might like to try demos of NBA 2K10 or Star Wars Battlefront: Elite Squadron (PSP). Plus, there's new content for Midnight Club: Los Angeles and Cross Edge.

There's only one extra PSP Minis game, Red Bull X Fighters, today - and it costs four quid.

Of the discounts, Riff: Everyday Shooter is most alluring, at £3.99/€4.99.

Over to music watch, and Queen invade Rock Band while some rockers I've never heard of appear for Guitar Hero.

PS3 Demos

NBA 2K10
PS3 Game Content

EyePet: Wild West Styling Pack (£2.39/€2.99)
EyePet: Lucky Dip Pack 1 (free)
Midnight Club Los Angeles: Police Car Pack (free)
Cross Edge: Power-Up Pack + (free)
Guitar Hero 5: Classic Rock 2 Track Pack ("Freeze Frame" by Geils Band, "Lay It On The Line" by Triump, "Show Me The Way (Live)" by Peter Frampton) - £4.39/€5.49 (£1.59/€1.99 each)
Rock Band: Queen Pack 01 ("Another One Bites The Dust", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "I Want It All by Queen", "I Want To Break Free", "Killer Queen", "One Vision", "Somebody To Love", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Under Pressure") - £9.19/€11.25 (£0.99/€1.49 each)
PS3 Premium Themes

EyePet (£1.59/€1.99)
Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time (£1.59/€1.99)
PSP Games

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars (£29.99/€34.99)
Hannah Montana: Rock Out The Show (£23.99/€29.99)
WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 (£31.99/€39.99)
Marvel Superhero Squad (£29.99/€34.99)
Astro Boy: The Video Game (£23.99/€29.99)
G-Force (£29.99/€34.99)
PSP Minis

Red Bull X Fighters (£3.99/€4.99)
PSP Demos

Star Wars Battlefield: Elite Squadron
PSP Game Content

Hannah Montana: Musician’s Wardrobe Add-on (free)
Hannah Montana: Hannah Montana Fashion Add-on (£1.19/€1.49)
Hannah Montana: Moment Maker Effects Add-on (£0.79/€0.99)
Hannah Montana: Rockstar Stage Props Add-on (free)
Rock Band Unplugged: "All I Want" by The Offsrping (£0.99/€1.49)
Rock Band Unplugged: "The Rock Show" by Blink 182 (£0.99/€1.49)

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/gt...s-on-psn-today ...

News this morning suggests Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has done it again, pre-empting official announcements by confirming to Gizmodo that the company is planning a Blu-ray expansion drive for the Xbox 360.

When asked if forthcoming 360s will get an internal Blu-ray drive, he replied: "Well I don't know if we need to put Blu-ray in there - you'll be able to get Blu-ray drives, can get Blu-ray drives as accessories."

It looks self-explanatory out of context, but then context is king, and if you watch the original clip it's easy to reach the conclusion that he was talking about buying yourself a separate player for the lounge if you fancy a Blu-ray player, and simply used the magic word "accessories" by accident. Especially as he then talks about video-on-demand being the future in the next sentence.

That said, there's no technical reason it couldn't happen. Assuming an external drive similar to the ill-fated HD-DVD add-on, the technical challenges of bringing Blu-ray to the Xbox 360 are significant, but most of the legwork has been done already. The HD-DVD codebase within the 360's dashboard features support for the same MPEG2, h264 and VC-1 codecs found in the Blu-ray spec.

The only question mark concerns the throughput levels the code is capable of: HD-DVD handled 30Mbps max, while Blu-ray ups the ante to 50Mbps. At the time of the HD-DVD add-on's launch, Microsoft talked about how a combination of both CPU and GPU power was required to handle the decoding. Assuming there's no overhead in the code, it could require significant re-engineering to get it up to BD specs.

Even then, Microsoft would be in the unenviable position of having to charge a premium for a BD playback solution fundamentally inferior to PlayStation 3 performance, most notably due to the limited surround sound options in the lower-spec HDMI 1.2 controller found in the Xbox 360.

Over and above that, Microsoft's strategy thus far has been to say that gamers don't need Blu-ray, and any kind of expansion device would suddenly be suggesting the opposite. Far from offering more value to the Xbox 360, it would immediately make the keenly priced all-in-one PS3 Slim far more of an attractive proposition. Validating Sony's decisions isn't Microsoft's style.

As for games arriving on Blu-ray for Xbox 360: forget it. Some figures bandied about at the time put the penetration of the HD-DVD add-on at a mere three per cent. A BD device would probably be more popular, but the take-up would still be far too low to risk muddying the waters with games available on multiple disc-based SKUs.

In a sense, the Xbox 360's reliance on DVD has defined the storage threshold for this generation. The vast majority of its first-party titles use just the one disc. Third-party cross-platform titles are, with the odd exception, invariably targeted towards the 6.8GB storage limit imposed by the Xbox 360 DVD, to the point where even the PS3 versions are much the same size. The success of the Microsoft console has defined the size of almost all cross-platform games this generation, effectively making the 25GB and 50GB storage limits of Blu-ray superfluous.

In terms of HD movies, Microsoft probably reckons its download-only strategy stands just as much of a chance of success as Blu-ray over the longer term as broadband streaming speeds increase. Its service is also inherently more suitable for the Xbox platform: it's immediate, it's available to all Xbox 360 owners out of the box, it adds value to Xbox Live, and, crucially, Microsoft will make more money from it. Releasing a BD peripheral gives the firm no recurring revenue stream and effectively share-steals from its own services.

Moving into the next generation, all bets are off. The next Xbox will require a higher level of storage and by the time that comes about, a Blu-ray drive will be the cheapest way to deliver that. In the here and now, any kind of move into the BD market would be too little, too late. And besides, Xbox 360 seems to be doing well enough without it.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...nse-blog-entry ...

T-Mobile UK has started selling the T-Mobile Pulse - the first Android handset available on a pay-as-you-go tariff.
The handset is exclusive to the operator, and costs £179.99. It's made by Huawei, and has a 3.5-inch touchscreen, 3.2-megapixel camera, and ships with the Android 1.5 OS.
That latter might put off geeks who want the more recent v1.6, but they're not really the target audience for the Pulse - presumably T-Mobile will be trying to sell them G2 Touch handsets on a contract.
Will the Pulse open up Android to a new, more mainstream consumer market in the UK? That price point might put a fair few off - it's the second most expensive paygo handset on T-Mobile UK behind the Nokia 5800.
Still, the fact that Android is now available on a pay-as-you-go basis is further sign of the platform's increasing importance to operators.

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/34783...ndroid-handset ...

Peter Molyneux confirms motion support for his studio’s Xbox 360 RPG
Microsoft’s European creative director of Microsoft Game Studios Peter Molyneux has confirmed that Lionhead’s upcoming RPG Fable III will support the motion-sensing Natal camera.
News first came from Gamesbrief’s Nicholas Lovell, who was in the audience at Molyneux’s BAFTA seminar last night.
Seeing as Molyneux’s Lionhead studios, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2006, was behind Natal’s impressive E3 Milo demonstration, news that the developer is looking to integrate Microsoft’s tech into its next game is to be expected.
Whether Natal will be utilised in expense of or alongside the standard Xbox 360 joypad is yet to be seen.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...le-III-project ...

Sony has sold over 60,000 slim PlayStation 3's in Australia since the model was introduced on September 3.

According to the company, the console has been outselling rival hardware from Nintendo and Microsoft during the period, with Sony about to kick off a new promotion to further boost sales.

"I can confirm that in excess of 60,000 units of the PS3 120GB have been sold since launch," a spokesperson for sony told GameSpot. “I can also confirm that since the launch of the new model on September 3, total sales for the period since introduction have outperformed our competition.”

Sony is also now offering a free slim PS3 console to consumers who buy a Bravia LCD TV, with guaranteed delivery before Christmas.

Earlier this week it was revealed that sales of the PSPgo failed to make much of an impact in its first week on the market, with around 1000 units sold.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...n-in-australia ...

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has appeared to suggest that a Blu-ray drive will shortly be made available for the Xbox 360 as a standalone accessory.

In exerts from a forthcoming interview at Gizmodo, Ballmer responded to a question about Blu-ray compatibility on the Xbox 360 by saying: "I don't know if we need to put Blu-ray in there - you'll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories".

Although the quote appears unambiguous Ballmer has a history of inaccurate comments regarding Microsoft's Xbox business. Most recently he was forced to retract a statement which implied that a new Xbox 360 model would be released at retail this year - after he apparently became confused over plans for the forthcoming Project Natal hardware.

A statement from Microsoft, also obtained by Gizmodo, states: "Our immediate solution for Blu-ray-quality video on an Xbox 360 is coming this fall with Zune Video and 1080p instant-on HD streaming. As far as our future plans are concerned, we're not ready to comment." Neither service be available outside of North America this year.

As Eurogamer affiliate Digital Foundry points out a Blu-ray peripheral makes little sense given the technical difficulties and the inadvisability of splitting the Xbox 360 market by releasing games on the format - presumably leaving any potential add-on as a movie-only player similar to the ill-fatted HD-DVD peripheral.

As Digital Foundry suggests Ballmer actually seemed to be talking about standalone Blu-ray players and may simply have used the word "accessories" by accident.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-for-xbox-360 ...

via Computer and Video Games


Here are some brand new shots of the XBLA remake of N64 classic Perfect Dark running on 360 hardware.

As you can see, the blurry resolution and texture quality of the N64 original are now pin-sharp, the guns look to have been re-skinned with more detailed textures and Elvis has had a techie make-over too.

Perfect Dark on XBLA will also feature online play via Xbox Live, which should be ace.

MS said it'd do it's best to answer any questions we have about the remake. So we asked some:

...

via Eurogamer


Nintendo Europe has distanced itself from strong "rumour and speculation" surrounding a new DSi Speak Channel.

It all started on the Nintendo customer support website, where GoNintendo spotted the following line:
The Wii Speak Channel uses the Wii Speak microphone peripheral to allow people to chat together and in separate rooms if they wish. Mii avatars attempt to mouth what you're saying. You can also leave audio clips on message boards and record audio captions for pictures.

It's that exciting. ...

News via pspita/pspgen

As expected, the team PSPGEN has just released the awaited update to the Custom Firmware D 5.50GEN obviously restricted only to owners of PSP-1000 and PSP-2000 (except TA-088v3). This new update solves all the problems that arose with the 5.50GEN-C a few days ago.
More information about the installation process in complete.

Installation - Notes:

Quote:

Minimum requirements for installing and tips:
- PSP-1000 or 2000 with at least CF 4.01M33 (except TA-088v3) (CF recommended 5.50GEN-B2)
- Remove any custom themes and set the default

.: Installation:.
- Copy the firmware 5.50, renamed 550.pbp in the root directory.
- Extract the contents of the package XGEN Installer for 5.50GEN-D and copy the UPDATE folder in PSP / GAME
- Start the application in the game> Memory Stick
- Select the option Install Flash CFW 5:50 GEN-D

The news 5.50GEN CF-D:
• All options 5.50GEN-B2
• Launch games that require higher fw and 5:51 (UMD or ISO) without having to resort to prodecure patch
• Start demos that require higher as MGS and 5:51 FW: Peace Walker
• Connection to the NDP by MediaGate
• E 'XGEN can use the Updater to install the firmware Journal 6:10

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