It’s official folks! The European PlayStation Video Store will be launching in France, Germany, Spain and the UK soon. Sony is holding a special launch party tomorrow (Wednesday, November 18th 2009), which we’ve been invited to. The launch event is being held in London, though we cannot reveal the exact location.
If you have wondered what Mushroom Wars is like but didn’t want to spend the money, you will be happy to know that a demo will be released on the European PlayStation Store this week. Mushroom Wars is a fast-paced and accessible RTS, with a quaint, anime-inspired visual style, where you send your cute armies into battle, upgrade your mushroom bases, improve your weaponry and fight skirmishes in close-quarter maps.
Over the coming weeks VidZone expands across Europe, allowing a further 11 countries to use the service. Starting from next Thursday, 26th November, VidZone will be released available to PS3 owners in Netherlands, Portugal and Austria. In December, 8 further countries will be added to the list – check out the release dates below. Unfortunately, still no word on when the service will be available in North America and elsewhere.
It’s now official – Facebook Integration is coming to the PlayStation 3 in the next firmware update, v3.10. For the moment, the Facebook connectivity on the PlayStation 3 will automatically update your Facebook Newsfeed with trophy and PlayStation Store activity, but more functionality is planned for the future. According to Eric Lempel, “This is just the beginning of our integration with Facebook and we are looking forward to adding new features enhancing the experience in future updates.”
Metal Gear fans have something to look forward to this week. The PSOne Classic Metal Gear Solid is heading to the European PlayStation Store this week, priced at £7.99 / €9.99. Konami plans to release four classic Metal Gear titles in the run up to Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, starting from this week.
Assassin’s Creed II hits the shelves this week, and we have some raunchy screens to show you. They’re of the game’s sex scene which is something that is appearing in games more and more often nowadays. Whether it really adds anything to the game depends on who you ask, but if you are curious, check out the screens below. Unfortunately, you will have to wait till later this week to experience the actual cutscene for yourself.
You can now stream Netflix videos directly onto your PlayStation 3. The Blu-Ray discs required for streaming are shipping now, and will soon be available as a native application on the XMB. We have a video showing exactly how the disc works. The disc makes use of the Blu-Ray Live features to stream videos directly to your PS3, and it works pretty well.
The PSOne classic Call of Duty has been removed from the European PlayStation Store, “as it was never supposed to be available for purchase,” according to MusterBuster on the European PlayStation Forum. Currently, only gamers who have purchased Modern Warfare 2 can download Call of Duty, using the voucher code found in the game case.
A new patch is now available to download for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. The patch fixes the PlayStation 3 invite problems that have been happening since the game launched earlier this week. Robert Bowling, Director of Communications and Community Manager for Infinity Ward, announced the release of the patch on twitter, saying “invites on PSN are good to go now.”
A source close to Sony has told Eurogamer that yes, Facebook is heading to PS3. The images of the service that appeared on the PlayStation website earlier this week, were posted by mistake and later taken down. The official Sony UK PR line is that there will be more information on this “very shortly”.
