With the North American release of Saints Row 2 today, we were eager to try the game out. After popping in the disc, were surprised to see a patch already available for the game. Patch v1.10 is 33MB in size but unfortunately trophy support is not included.
Gamers step into a third-person sci-fi survival horror experience that promises to deliver the ultimate in psychological thrills and gruesome action. Set in the cold blackness of deep space, the atmosphere is soaked with a feeling of tension, dread and sheer terror.
The PlayStation network will be down for maintenance tonight between 9:00PM and 2:00AM. The announcement was made on the SCEE forums but the post did not state why maintenance was being carried out. We speculate that the network is being prepared for the upcoming PSP and PS3 firmware updates, which are said to be released soon. During the downtime, you will not be able to sign-in to the network.
However, if you sign-on before, you will have no problems playing online. As you may have read, the PSP will be getting access to the PlayStation Store in firmware v5.00, and new features will be added to the PS3 PlayStation Store.
As the sequel to the more than one million unit selling and award-winning football experience, Blitz: The League II, continues the franchise legacy as the ultimate alternative to the watered-down, licensed competition.
Eric Lempel, over at the PlayStation.Blog has confirmed that PSP Firmware 5.00 will be released soon. Lempel also confirmes that Firmware v5.00 will include PlayStation Store support, adding a new menu to the XMB. The PlayStation Store will allow users to download games directly to their PSPs instead of using a PC or PS3. You will be able to use your existing PlayStation Network login (whether PC or PS3) and you will be able to manage your account directly on the PSP.
With the PlayStation Store coming to the PSP, the PC PlayStation Store will be down for a while to revamp the store. You can use your existing PlayStation Wallets to purchase items from the store too. A video demo of the store will be released by Sony soon. In other changes, a sleep times has been added to the music player and a full screen keyboard option has been added. The XMB background has also been redesigned.
More details on the new features will be available once the firmware update goes live.
PlayStation 3 Firmware update v2.50 in coming soon and with it comes several improvements and new features. With the release of the official bluetooth headset this month, the firmware update will add new features to support High Quality audio mode. Also, the trophy system will be getting an interface enhancement to make it easier to compare trophies. As for new features, the firmware update will add in-game screenshot support, power save settings for wireless controllers and background downloading features.
Changelog:
At the Tokyo Games Show 2008, Sony has announced that PlayStation Home will be released to the public on November 19th 2008. Home has already been delayed twice since it was announced almost two years ago. The extended closed beta of PlayStation Home is currently under way but in just over a months time, everyone will be able to enjoy Sony’s virtual world. On launch, a variety of third-party content will be available from many game design companies.
Ryoji Akagawa of Sony said that around 24 game design companies would provide the content needed for Home – but didn’t give much else away. Xbox 360 is developing a similar virtual community called "New Xbox Experience". Microsoft’s John Schappert said:
"Our goal is to make the Xbox experience more visual, easier to use, more fun to use and more social…We focused a lot on friends and other experiences outside just playing games."
This week content for four television series and over 30 new movies have been added to the PlayStation Video Store. New TV content includes It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Star Trek VIII: First Contact. As for new movies, a few that stand out from the list of over 30 include King Kong, The Hitchhiker?s Guide to the Galaxy and Con Air. As for this week’s top 20 movie downloads, Iron Man is on top followed by Grandma’s Boy in second place and Speed Racer in third.
Television:
Movies:
It’s been confirmed on the Japanese PlayStation website. PlayStation Portable firmware 5.00 will be released some time next week and feature PlayStation Store access as we previously reported. The launch date for other regions is not yet known but it is expected to hit the US and Europe around the same time. Firmware 5.00 will be required in order to access the PlayStation Store. Estimated launch for firmware 5.00 is October 15th 2008, when the PlayStation Store for PSP goes live in Japan.
The image above shows the new PlayStation Network icon on the XMB, similar to the PlayStation 3. It is not yet known if the PlayStation Store can be accessed on older PSP models, but our guess is that it will definitely be compatible with the PSP-2000 model.
A patch for WipEout HD is now available to download in Europe. Patch v1.1 solves some of the bugs that were reported with the game. Unfortunately, if you played the game while having more than 50 friends, then it is possible that your game savedata has been corrupted and will need to be deleted. Once the update is installed, users should delete any savedata and then launch the game to create a new profile. Luckly, any trophies that you have unlocked will remain on your PSN profile.
The patch is currently available in Europe only, but one for North America will most likely be released soon. The official comment on the update is:
"If at any time you have had over 50 users in your friends list whilst playing Wipeout it is possible that your saved data has become corrupted.
If this situation applies to you, we strongly recommend once this update has installed you quit the game and delete your saved data using the saved data utility in the XMB, then relaunch the game to create a new profile."
