The official Bluetooth headset for the PlayStation 3 was first announced during SOCOM Media Day. The headset is already available, but not as a standalone accessory – until today. The headset was originally bundled with SOCOM: Confrontation but from today you can purchase it as a standalone accessory for use with compatible games, including Resistance, LittleBigPlanet and Warhawk. The headset is available for $49.99 (approx £27).
The Halloween update for the US PlayStation Video Store is a massive one. There are 20 new TV series additions to the store as well as over 100 new movies. New TV content includes American Dad, Bones, Chuck and How I Met Your Mother. As for new movies: Beerfest, Con Air, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and The Lord of the Rings are just some of the new movies available to rent or purchase. This week’s top 20 downloads include The Happening on top, followed by The Love Guru in second place and Iron Man in third. Check out the list of new content below.
TV:
Movies:
Resistance 2 is a sci-fi first person shooter video game developed by Insomniac Games. Resistance 2 is the sequel to the best-selling PlayStation 3 launch title Resistance: Fall of Man. Resistance 2 sees protagonist Nathan Hale travel to the United States in order to once again battle the Chimera, who have launched a full scale invasion of both the east and west coasts. This time out Hale is part of a special task force of soldiers called “The Sentinels”, who, like him, are infected with the Chimeran virus, but keep it under control with special inhibitors and are thus able to reap the benefits. There are a total of 39 trophies to unlock in Resistance 2.
The last PlayStation Store update for October is in. As we reported on Wednesday, the Mirror’s Edge demo is now available to download from both the US and European Stores. Tom Clancy’s EndWar demo is also available to download from both stores. As for other content, three new Civilization Revolution add-on packs are available from both stores as well as a selection of new Rock Band Tracks. You will also find a some new game trailers, themes and wallpapers up for download. Check out the complete list below.
European Additions:
US Additions:
Earlier this week, SCEA sent an email around to PlayStation Underground members with reference to all Qore customers getting access to the PlayStation Home Extended Beta in Episode 6. The email originally stated that users who purchase Qore episode 6, but do not subscript would also get access to the beta, however, this is not the case anymore. In another email sent today, SCEA has stated that "special invitation to PlayStation Home’s closed beta is available only to Qore annual subscribers who purchased subscriptions by 10/29. Qore Episode 06 purchasers will not be eligible for the special PlayStation(R)Home beta invitation at this time."
This is no doubt bad news to anyone who wanted to take part in PlayStation Home, but is not a Qore subscriber. As you can see from the email, the deadline to subscribe has already passed. If you did not subscribe in time then you can kiss the Home Beta goodbye!
Original Email:
"As an update to the PLAYSTATION(R)3 News email sent on Friday,
October 24th, the special invitation to PlayStation(R)Home’s closed
beta is available only to Qore annual subscribers who purchased
subscriptions by 10/29. Qore Episode 06 purchasers will not be
eligible for the special PlayStation(R)Home beta invitation at
this time. We apologize for the miscommunication.Participation in PlayStation(R)Home’s closed beta is limited to
those 18 years and older and requires agreement with the
PlayStation(R)Home Beta Trial."
We were lucky enough to play the Mirror’s Edge demo at the Eurogamer Expo 2008 earlier today, which was held in London. If you are eager to play this upcoming title, the wait is only hours away. In a press release earlier today, EA announced that the demo will be available to download from the PlayStation Store after tomorrows update. The demo will be available to download from the European PlayStation Store, but there were no details about North America getting a demo too.
Press Release from EA:
"Guildford, UK ? October 29, 2008. This week gamers can ?take a leap of Faith’ with a special demo for Mirror’s Edge, available at the PlayStation Store on October 30th and on Xbox LIVE Marketplace on October 31st. The demo will feature the prologue of the game, a tutorial and a segment of the single-player story mode. Now is your chance to experience the action that has GameSpot saying ‘Unlike anything we’d ever played before.’"
Anthony Rose, head of Online Media Group, BBC Future Media & Technology, has revealed that a PS3 specific version of the popular iPlayer is in the works. With the recent Adobe Flash Player update for the PS3, it is now possible for the BBC Flash Developers to make a PS3-compatible version, through there are some compatibility issues. Some European Gamers are already enjoying BBC channels using the recently released PlayTV tuner for the PlayStation 3, but the new iPlayer will further expand the userbase.
Anthony Rose said:
"We’re… working on bringing BBC iPlayer to Sony PS3, but we’re not quite there yet as the PS3 uses a slightly older version of Flash which doesn’t support some of the features used in our media player, and the very promising Flash 9 update now available on PS3 has some compatibility issues.
Our Flash developers are working on it."
Mirrors Edge is a first-person, 3D platform game featuring Faith, who’s job is to deliver messages or packages while evading government surveillance. Faith uses free-running (or Parkour as it’s known) to navigate the environment, from jumping across buildings to climbing. There are a total of 51 trophies to unlock in this game, including those from the add-on DLC.
The recent PlayStation 3 firmware update has made many improvements to the PlayStation 3 System Software, and especially the Internet Browser. It’s taken some time, but Adobe Flash Player 9 has finally been integrated into the PS3. Some would argue that it’s a little too late as Adobe Flash Player 10 is now available to download. According to IGN, "Sony has actually been working on Flash 9 support for quite some time — as far back as late last year. To get it running on the PS3, Sony ended up customizing a separate Flash implementation that was provided to it by Adobe."
IGN also reports:
"For a sense of how computationally intensive some areas of Flash 9 can be, you need only consider this little bit. According to Takase, the PS3 implementation of Flash-based playback for H.264 videos makes use of an SPU. This allows for loading up of web pages to be separate from video playback, improving framerate.
The entire web experience on the PS3 has been improved with the new firmware update. Noda cited a 2.8 times increase in Javascript speed according to Sony’s own benchmarks. Takase believes PS3’s Javascript performance, while not up to the level of Google Chrome, beats Internet Explorer 7."
[Via: IGN]
LittleBigPlanet is already out in North America and will soon be released in Europe and the UK. However, even before the game hit US stores, Media Molecule have been working on the sequel. The development of a sequel has been confirmed by BBC News’ technology editor, Darren Waters, in a piece that salutes Guildford’s developing houses, Media Molecule and Lionhead Studios, for coming out with games that are distinctly British, but universal in appeal. Says Waters on the LBP sequel, "Even before the game has hit the shops, the team are already at work on a sequel."
There is no doubt that LittleBigPlanet will be a massive hit – most of you will have heard the stories around the beta code giveaways causing websites to crash due to the large amount of traffic. Media Molecule have not revealed any details about the sequel, and we specualte that they won’t release any information for at least a few months.
