The PlayStation 3 finally arrived in Europe last night, and there was a surprise in store for those buying a console at the official UK launch - a free 46" Sony Bravia television worth around GBP 2000.

The flagship Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street store opened its doors to the first customers keen to get their hands on PS3 at noon on Wednesday. Although only a handful turned up to spend the night in the store, by 11pm on Thursday the queue had grown to over 100 people.

With just 20 minutes to go until the console officially went on sale, Sony UK boss Ray Maguire stepped up to address the crowd in front of a large flatscreen TV.

"This is a 46-inch Bravia W series. It's an award-winning flat panel," he said. "And do you know what the good news, is guys? I'm going to give you one free."

The cheers were muted at first, but then the news began to sink in. When Maguire clarified, "Every single one of you in this queue is going to get one," the crowd responded with whoops and applause.

At midnight, the first PlayStation 3 was handed over to 17 year-old Ritatsu Thomas, who'd been waiting since 5am on Wednesday. He also received a Bravia TV to take home, but everyone else in the queue - 125 people in total - was told they'll receive their television next week.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz about the decision to give away the TVs, Maguire said, "PlayStation 3 is about the new generation of high definition. There are some people in that queue for whom the HD part is the more difficult part of the equation, and I think it's a way of just saying thank you.

"They've got the best console, and now they've got the best screen."

Maguire said he thought the launch had "gone great, considering that we weren't allowed to let people queue up outside and there were loads of restrictions".

"People waiting for 36 hours and sleeping overnight is absolutely unbelievable - it shows the affinity people have for the brand, and it's really humbling," he added.

Maguire's comments were echoed by Sony PR boss David Wilson, who told GamesIndustry.biz, "When retailers are going on record saying there's free stock, there's no point for any of these guys to come here and spend 36 on that floor down there - so I'm touched that so many have."

via gibiz ...

Any of you hoping to continue playing Pro Evolution Soccer 6 online using your shiny new PlayStation 3 will be disappointed to learn that the PS2 version can't do this yet.

Although Konami has confirmed that the single-player and versus modes in the PS2 game are compatible with PS3, it released a statement this afternoon saying that online play is incompatible.

The publisher blamed "alterations made to the console's hardware specifications" - certainly a reference to the loss of internal chips dedicated to PS2 emulation in the PS3 units manufactured for PAL regions.

Sony's backwards compatibility site currently lists PES6 as playing "with noticeable issues". Additional advice on playing PS2 games, posted along with the compatibility guide, notes that users should avoid the use of 60Hz and network modes "which may experience noticeable graphical corruption not present in the main game".

On the plus side, Konami said that it and Sony would let us know about changes "as soon as they occur", which suggests that they're not content to leave it at that. With no prospect of a PS3-specific PES game in the immediate future, we expect a solution is pretty high on Konami's agenda.

We imagine Sony's probably quite keen too, what with Xbox 360 having a version of its own.

via eurogamer ...

The PlayStation 3's relatively high price in the UK is down to "the cost of living" as much as anything, according to Sony UK managing director Ray Maguire, who also suggested that negative coverage of the console had been "lazy". "The old adage of never let the truth get in the way of a good story is probably more prevalent than it has been before," he told our sister site GamesIndustry.biz.

Comparing the US and UK prices of the console (US$ 599 and GBP 425 respectively), Maguire told gi.biz that whereas the US was a "massive land with cheap people", the UK was "a little island where rent and rates are at an absolute premium, and the cost of people is a lot more".

"The cost of retail is vastly more in the UK than it is in the US and that's before you even stop to consider the US doesn't have VAT at RRP, they put a small amount on afterwards. Whereas, we get stung by 17.5 per cent. And pity the poor Irish and places like Sweden," he added.

"But we have to remember this is no different to selling a cup of Starbucks coffee or a McDonald's hamburger. This is the cost of living in the UK. It just becomes another barrier for us to get more product into the marketplace because the price needs to be set higher to get from our factory to the consumer."

Asked why Sony opted for the slightly peculiar price point of GBP 425 rather than rounding down past the psychological 400 barrier and going for GBP 399, Maguire said: "We did consider GBP 429, but we wanted to get the best for the consumer."

Moving swiftly on, Sony's UK MD admitted that it hasn't been "smooth sailing" for the company. "Nowadays, with how the media works, not only does information fly around at the speed of light, so does mis-information," he argued. "With blogs on the increase, people's thought processes are transferred from one place to another and picked up by people who might be lazy when it comes to finding out whether something is true or not. The old adage of never let the truth get in the way of a good story is probably more prevalent than it has been before.

"You also have to remember that we're one of the most cynical nations on the planet and even if you're telling people the absolute truth they doubt whether that information is real or not. This is the world that we sit in and we have to accept it and make the best of it."

via eurogamer ...

Those of you wondering where the rather splendid GripShift was on the PlayStation Network launch list will be pleased to learn that it turned up after all.


New Zealand (good country) based developer Sidhe sent word that the game is available to buy through the PlayStation Store in Europe and Australia, for a frankly brilliant introductory price of EUR 7.99.

GripShift - once an underrated PSP game - really comes into its own on PS3 thanks to a range of instantly-accessible online leaderboards that inject real competition into every track. A mixture of racing, puzzling and platforming, it's moreish to the point of being slightly debilitating.

via eurogamer ...

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Built- in Memory: 1GB
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ID3: 17 Multi Language
Equalizers: Normal, Rock, Jazz, Classic, Pop, Bass
Play Mode: Intro, Normal, Repeat One, Repeat All, Random, Folder, Repeat Folder
FM Stereo radio: FM tuner with 40 station memories
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Digital Voice Recording: MP1/ MP2/ MP3/ AMV support (MP4 movie)/ WMA/ WMV/ ASF/ WAV
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Connection: High speed USB 2.0
Supported OS: Windows 98/ 2000/ ME/ XP/ Mac OS 10.3/ Linux 2.4.2
Dimension(cm)g: 4cm x 9cm x 0.8cm (g)
Firmware Upgradeable: Ready
Lyric Display: Ready
Output: 5mW + 5mW (32 OHM)
Frequency Range: 20Hz – 20KHz
Encoding Format: 5Kbps – 320Kbps
Accessories: Earphone, USB Cable, Install CD, Manual, Line-in cable, USB adaptor connector, earphone, Warranty ...

It's here! The PlayStation 3 has finally gone on sale on the UK and we've got footage of the first guy in the queue (fumbling through his wallet trying to find a card that would work) shelling out to be part of Sony's next-gen.

PlayStation 3 has just gone on sale in the UK, at Virgin Megastore on Oxford Road. Sony Studios boss Phil Harrison was at the store overseeing operation PS3, as was ex-Sony Europe boss Chris Deering.

But compared to the recent Wii launch last November, the turnout was a bit low key. That's mainly down to the fact that there are plenty of units in stock up and down the country. You should be able to walk straight into a store tomorrow and pick one up without a pre-order or excuse as to why you took a day off work to stand in line. Of course the turnout may also be down to the £425 price tag.

Just over 100 gamers were allowed inside Virgin Megastore to be the first in the UK to buy the machine. But Sony made the 24-hour queuing process worth every bladder-bruising second. The first 100 or so in line were given a free 46" HD TV for their efforts in bladder control. If we'd known this was going to happen, we'd have been in that queue since Wednesday afternoon too.

As midnight neared, an announcer told the gathering mass that they would get their free telly in the post, presumably so they wouldn't have to walk around the centre of London with 'rob me' written all over them. A 46" HD TV is also too big to carry alongside a big bag of PS3. It took two Virgin staffers to carry one out to a waiting taxi.

The UK launch of the PS3 was, for one short moment, in danger of being delayed yet again. Ritatsu Thomas, 17 from Mitcham, was the first person in the queue and the world watched as he had to rifle through his wallet to find a card that actually worked - it looked like the first few he tried crumbled under the £425 weight of his decision. But he got there in the end and you can see his reaction in the movie on your right.

Virgin's promo boss was pleased with how it all went though, saying, "Last night's Sony PS3 launch at Virgin Megastores flagship store on Oxford Street exceeded all expectations. We staged a retail first by allowing eager gaming fans the chance to camp overnight in the basement of the store, to make sure they were in prime position to get their hands on the console. The event culminated with Sony being very generous by giving away 46 inch Sony Bravia TVs to the first 125 the queue."

Stay tuned for more on the PS3 launch over the coming week.

Videos Here ...

Earlier this week Disney revealed its plans to bring a new Pirates of the Caribbean game to all formats, and now we have a gameplay trailer than shows off some surprisingly sweet-looking environments.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End will be based on both the latest film of the same name and the previous film, Dead Man's Chest.

The action looks pretty, so if the fighting is as "innovative" and intuitive as Disney say, this could be a decent movie-licence romp.

We'll see when it hits shelves in May in US. A UK release is expected soon after.

Trailer Here ...

We are yet to see a good beat-'em-up working well on the Wii with its innovative Remote, but Mortal Kombat Armageddon looks like it could be the first.

Instead of having player flail their arms around like the Naruto and Bleach fighters on Wii, MKA will have you performing simple and controlled gestures to make your on-screen fighter pull of special moves.

It makes executing fireballs, spear throws and super kicks so easy - you don't have to worry about slamming seven buttons at once - you just calmly move the Remote.

These screens give you an idea of how it will work, and if it proves to be intuitive during the heat of a battle, MKA is going to rock on Wii.

Screens Here ...

Perhaps expectedly auction site salesman have got rather presumptuous with their eBay prices after the PS3 launch in Europe, marking up consoles to as much as £600 on the site.

Thankfully, it looks like there's no-one out their silly enough or in a remote-enough Welsh village to have to pay for the eBay seller's prices. Though things could certainly change after the consumer troops clean up the last wave of PS3s left in the shops this morning.

The highest actual bid we've encountered thus far has beenthis PS3 auction where one lucky bidder is currently offering a £499 price tag on a PS3 and one game.

To be honest though that isn't too far off what three members of the CVG team paid this morning when we walked into HMV and Virgin and got a PS3 each without a pre-order.

Looking further through the listings there's also a handful of bargains to be had; if you're quick enough there are a number of PS3s and games up for grabs for under RRP, though no-one's offering £146 worth of beer.

We expect the true eBay consensus to emerge after the weekend shopping spree - so stay tuned for more auction fun. It's safe to say that there's none of the nonsense we saw at Wii, 360 and US PS3 launches to been seen though.

via cvg ...