A selection of "rare classic games" will be made available on the US PlayStation Store this week, according to Industry Gamers.
The move is part of Only On PlayStation Network, Sony's bid to draw attention to the range of exclusive games available from its PlayStation 3 download store. On October 4, PS2 classics including Capcom's high-camp brawler God Hand and hack-and-slash titleMaximo: Ghosts To Glory, Konami's strategy game Ring Of Red, and Vanillaware titles Odin Sphere and GrimGrimoire will be released.
As well as the old classics, October will also see the release of a host of PSN exclusives, starting on October 4 with Eufloria andRochard. Sideway: New York follows next week, with Sodium Collection due on October 13. Okabu and Rocketbirds launch on October 18 and, the following week, InFamous 2 expansion Festival Of Blood and Pixeljunk Sidescroller will be released.
PlayStation Plus subscribers will get a 20 per cent discount on all games released in the promotion, and those that spend $60 on the store during October will receive $10 credit for purchases in November.
We've contacted SCEE to ascertain whether the promotion only applies to the United States or will be rolled out worldwide, and are waiting to hear back from Capcom whether the PS2 games will be in original form or upscaled to HD.
UPDATE: We've had the following statement from Sony: "The Only On PlayStation Network programme is for the SCEA region only. However, we will be bringing the majority of the content to the SCEE audience, including classic PS2 titles. We have numerous exciting offers that we will be introducing to PSN users throughout our region in the lead up to Christmas and look forward to sharing these with you."

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/ps2-classics-hit-psn-week
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Oh, iFaithful, your newest Apple phone(s) are only a day away. Which is even more reason to hunker down into this latest chunk of pre-announcement gossip. According to information obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Sprint's betting the farm on a 30 million-plus order of next-generation iPhones to put it on an even battle ground with heavyweight rivals AT&T and Verizon. The cost of this loss-absorbing gamble? That would be about $20 billion, with the Hesse-led co. subsidizing the $500 cost of each handset. For the third place operator it's matter of do-or-die, as there really isn't an alternative to the critically-praised, Jony Ive-designed handset that set off this smartphone race. Hesse's purported admission to the company's board that customer churn is directly linked to its iPhone omission only serves to underscore the uncomfortable plight his company faces. It remains to be seen if Sprint can convert its base of 52 million subscribers (mostly pre-paid) into the contracted customers it needs to stay financially afloat. While an iPhone on Sprint certainly seems a given, it's unclear whether this next device will opt for a WiMAX or LTE radio.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/03/s...inges-company/ ...

Almost four years after first police raids, Parisian appeals court awards Nintendo €4.8 million in damages.


The sale of flash cards used for playing pirated games on Nintendo's DS handheld has finally been ruled illegal in France.

The decision last week by the Court Of Appeals in Paris, the second-highest tier of the French legal system, brings down the curtain on a legal battle stretching back for almost four years.

Divineo Sarl and five other companies were found guilty of the import, sale and distribution of flash cards - known in France as linkers - fined over €460,000 (£398,658) and told to pay damages in excess of €4.8 million (£4.2 million) to Nintendo.

Stephan Bole, managing director of Nintendo France, said: "Nintendo supported this criminal action not only for the company's sake, but for the interests of its game developer partners who expect the highest standards and integrity from products bearing the Nintendo name."

The case began in December 2007 when French police raided premises across the country and seized several thousand DS flash cards. In December 2009, a French court backed Divineo, ruling that Nintendo was "illegally" protecting its system by locking out would-be developers who should be allowed to create their own homebrew applications for the console without censure.

Nintendo appealed the decision, citing a Hong Kong court in 2008 which ruled against Divineo and ordered it to pay Nintendo €44.6 million in damages. That appeal has finally succeeded, and Nintendo notes that it brings France into line with the likes of Germany, Italy, the UK, Netherlands and Belgium, which have also declared the devices illegal.

Divineo was also found guilty of trafficking mod chips and software that enabled piracy on PlayStation 2, and was fined $9.5 million by a California court in 2006.

http://www.next-gen.biz/news/french-...-cards-illegal

Not good for the Homebrew Community ...

Nokia's announcement that it was developing a Linux distro for low-end smartphones, shortly after abandoning the Linux-based Meego OS for Windows Phone 7, was a little puzzling. But it actually makes good business sense in the smartphone world. While WP7 aims for the high end, there's a market for cheaper and less complex phones that still beat boring old feature phones, especially in emerging economies. And, unlike Symbian and the heavily tweaked Meego, Linux can be quickly and cheaply brought to market as a low-end smartphone OS

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/...nd-smartphones ...

suraj.sun sends word that a recent Facebook patent application details specific methods for tracking its users while they're using other websites. Michael Arrington pointed out over the weekend that this follows explicit statements from Facebook employees that the social networking giant has "no interest in tracking people." Quoting the Patent Application:"In one embodiment, a method is described for tracking information about the activities of users of a social networking system while on another domain. The method includes maintaining a profile for each of one or more users of the social networking system, each profile identifying a connection to one or more other users of the social networking system and including information about the user. The method additionally includes receiving one or more communications from a third-party website having a different domain than the social network system, each message communicating an action taken by a user of the social networking system on the third-party website. The method additionally includes logging the actions taken on the third-party website in the social networking system, each logged action including information about the action."

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/...on-other-sites ...

The Australian Privacy Commissioner has declared that Sony Australia broke no privacy laws in its handling of the PSN breach earlier this year.
Although the Commissioner made clear that Sony should have communicated the extent of the breach to its customers more quickly, the legal investigation into culpability for the data loss has concluded that the loss occurred as a: "result of a sophisticated security cyber attack on the Network Platform's systems."
The office, which only has jurisdiction over Sony's Australian branch, also pointed out that the information itself was actually held by a different division of the company in California, reportsGamasutra.
The office judged Sony Australia to have responded to the crisis with due diligence in order to protect any further theft of its customers' information.
"The Privacy Commissioner was also satisfied with how the incident was dealt with following the breach in terms of the extra security measures that have been implemented to help protect personal information," reads the commissioners report.
However, some criticism was reserved for the speed with which Sony informed customers about the security breach.
"Given his concerns over the period that elapsed before Sony notified its customers, the Privacy Commissioner strongly recommended that Sony review how it applies the OIAC's Guide to handling personal information security breaches."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...rivacy-charges
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FIFA 12 has taken the UK's software chart number one in its first week, pushing Epic's Gears of War 3 down to second place, with F1 2011 taking up third.

Forty four per cent of sales were on PlayStation 3, and fifty six on Xbox 360. The game lunched across almost every current platform.

Hardy summer title Zumba Fitness remains in fourth, with Techland's Dead Island leapfrogging it into fifth. Eidos Montreal's series reboot of Deus Ex is in sixth, with the newly remastered ICO and Shadow of the Colossus entering at seventh.

Last week in Japan, the HD reissues of the PS2 classics made second place with over 90,000 copies sold.

Last Week This Week Title
New entry 1 FIFA 12
1 2 Gears of War 3
2 3 F1 2011
4 4 Zumba Fitness
3 5 Dead Island
5 6 Deus Ex: Human Revolution
New entry 7 ICO and SotC HD
6 8 Driver San Francisco
9 9 LEGO Pirates Of The Caribbean
11 10 Call of Duty: Black Ops
7 11 Warhammer 40K: Space Marine
10 12 Rugby World Cup 2011
8 13 Resistance 3
12 14 Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
13 15 Cars 2
16 16 Just Dance 2
14 17 The Sims 3
New entry 18 X-Men: Destiny
17 19 LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
New entry 20 Wii sports Resort

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...om-first-place ...

Sony's PlayStation Vita will have a 20mb filesize limit for 3G downloads for its Japanese launch, in line with Apple's similar policy on downloading over a mobile data network.
On Apple devices, download filesize is also limited to 20mb unless connected by wireless, a limit which Sony has decided to emulate, reports Japanese blog ASCII, translated by Andriasang.
Sony has indicated that this number may change in the future. Sony Europe has been contacted for clarification on whether the limit will apply to European territories too. Sony is yet to announce pricing or carrier parters for the UK.
Download speeds on the 3G model Vita are fixed to 128kbps down, with upload rates capped at 64kbps, allowing Sony's Japanese mobile carrier partner NTT DoCoMo to sell 3G access cards by the hour. However, the 100 hour card, priced at ¥4,980, grants users 3 hours of free high speed, 14 mbs down and 5.7 mbs up usage.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...o-20mb-over-3g
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Turns out, Sony Ericsson is really coming around to the understanding that Android phones are not a one-size-fits-all proposition. After taking notice of the FreeXperia team's tireless efforts to bringCyanogenMod 7.1 to certain SE devices, the company is now "pulling a Samsung" by lending its support to the cause. The firm has provided the group with approximately 20 phones, along with debugged and rebuilt camera library binaries to ensure a proper user experience. Not stopping there, Sony Ericsson hopes to make these bits available to all developers under a special EULA in the near future. Of course, the company continues to remind its users that it doesn't specifically condone unlocking the bootloader -- which still results in a void warranty -- even though it's willing to help you do just that.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/02/s...love-for-cyan/ ...