Just days after Sony’s PS3 2.4 update hit the streets, consumers have begun complaining about a variety of different problems regarding the software.

Apparently, other than small somewhat insignificant problems such as microphone problems, some users are reporting that their consoles have been rendered useless after updating their PS3’s firmware to 2.4.

In response to the commotion, Sony has decided to take the firmware update offline for an undetermined amount of time.

Included in the 2.4 update was the in-game CrossMedia bar along with the achievement Trophy system.

Giving Mac gamers some respite, Ubisoft and Mac developer TransGaming have announced plans to release the publisher’s games on the platform. Initial offerings will include ports of pet simulators Catz and Dogz, as well as Hard Evidence, a CSI-themed adventure title from Telltale. No other games were mentioned.

TransGaming specializes in PC-to-Mac ports through its Cider technology. It is currently working with several developers, including CCP (EVE Online) and EA (Spore) to bring their games to the Mac.

Following up on the allegedly leaked image that showed the PlayStation Store offering PS2 games, Sony Computer Entertainment has denied the report, stating that there are “no plans for PS2 downloadable titles on PS3.”

The image, posted by a N4G forum poster, is said to have come from someone inside Sony’s London studio. The poster also stated that the announcement would come at this year’s E3, with rollout expected in Summer.

It appears just dominating the MMORPG market isn’t enough for Blizzard… they have to have another game in there! The studio, having revealed Diablo 3 over the weekend, has confirmed that it has another MMO in the works, though no details weren’t given.

“There is still one unknown project,” Blizzard executive VP Rob Pardo revealed to OnlineWelten at the company’s Worldwide Invitational event. “We have another development team.”

Fans are already speculating that it may be in the veins of World of Warcraft, building on the StarCraft universe with a World of StarCraft game. Others believe that the studio is working on a completely new franchise; Blizzard hasn’t made any new franchises since the release of StarCraft back in 1998.

It seems Funcom, developers of hit MMORPG Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, have stirred up quite a ruckus with a seemingly honest mistake in their games code.

Apparently, users have noted that female avatars are slightly weaker than their male counterparts when making combination attacks. Funcom has made note of this and blamed it on the fact that the different gender’s attack animations aren’t timed exactly the same, causing males to output a little bit more damage than females.

Well, a fix is on its way but Funcom lets us know that, due to the amount of work needed for the fix, it will take some time.

In today’s share of surprising news, a poster on the N4G forums has put up an image which shows PS2 titles available on the PlayStation Store. It is allegedly taken by an employee at Sony Studios London. According to his post, the source also claimed that the PS2 lineup will be officially announced at E3, which is just two weeks away, with an official launch coming later this Summer.

Earlier models of the PS3 feature backwards compatibility with PS2 games, though the PS3 model sold now do not. The games pictured in the snapshot include Metal Gear Solid 2, Red Faction, Ridge Racer 5, SSX, and The Bouncer.

It is yet to be confirmed by Sony, but I guess we just have to wait for two weeks before everything is detailed.

The state of Minnesota has paid $65,000 in legal fees and other expenses spent by the Entertainment Software Association in its successful challenge of an unconstitutional game law, the organization announced today. It additionally noted that it has now been awarded nearly $2 million in fees and expenses spent battling unconstitutional game law in nine other districts.

“Minnesota’s citizens should be outraged at paying the bill for this flawed plan. Minnesota’s public officials ignored legal precedent and instead pursued a political agenda that ultimately cost taxpayers money,” said ESA CEO Michael Gallagher.

The law sought to penalize minors for renting and purchasing M-rated games. An injunction to halt the law prior to implementation was issued two months later by Judge James M. Rosenbaum of the US District Court of Minnesota.

Though Hellgate: London did not create much of an impact in North America and Europe, it is making one hell of a splash in the land of the rising sun. The game recently launched in Japan, ravaging the PC sales chart of the country, which isn’t really friendly towards computer titles and especially not sales-friendly for Western titles, too.

Hellgate: London has debuted at the number one spot in the country, outselling popular MMO games Lineage and Ragnarok online, as well as heavyweight Final Fantasy XI. Quite surprisingly, Spore Creature Creator, which made quite an impact in North America, is nowhere to be seen on the Japanese and European charts.

Speaking to Gamasutra, Blizzard COO Paul Sams reiterated what his colleague Pardo said at last week’s GDC: “Microsoft needs to put more emphasis on gaming on Windows [operating systems].”

“Well, their gaming focus is very much on the [Xbox] 360. And that makes sense, cause they’re a hardware manufacturer as well as a software developer,” he said. “And so they’ve got a lot of money and investment tied up in that system.

“Certainly they have a lot in Windows. And Windows is a system that supports all the business applications as well as games.”

Sams continued, saying that Microsoft has the most prominent operating system in the world, noting that they should emphasize gaming on the platform “even more so than console boxes.”

The studio has shown their commitment to the platform in a time where developers are reluctant to work exclusively on the PC – Crytek comes to mind. Blizzard so far has three active projects – World of Warcraft, StarCraft II and Diablo III – all of which are exclusive to PC.

Continuing their story of nonstop success, Maxis’ latest endeavor Spore has topped the sales chart in North America for the week ending June 21. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the full game – since that’s not scheduled to ship until September – but the recently released Creature Creator, a sample of the studio’s work in the upcoming life simulation title.

The Creature Creator, which lets users fulfill their lifelong wishes of creating penis monsters, beat out another Maxis creation – The Sims 2 – for the top place, also beating out hardcore games such as World of Warcraft and Age of Conan. The game’s strong sales also saw it appearing at number six on the All Categories list.

Sony Computer Entertainment recently revealed that the PS3 would gain the much requested in-game XMB menu in a future update, but the company did not disclose full details until today.

Besides the in-game integration of the XMB menu – allowing users to play music and respond to friends, as well as manage PlayStation Store downloads – the update will introduce an Xbox 360 Achievements-like Trophy system and user profiles similar to Gamer card’s on the competing console. It will also double the console’s friends list limit from 50 to 100.

“Gamers will be ranked on a Level-basis depending on the bronze, silver, gold, and platinum trophies they earn across all games,” explained Sony. “These profiles will serve as virtual representations of PS3 users, allowing them to personalize their identities and display their gaming accomplishments.”

Most upcoming games will make use of the Trophy system. The v2.40 firmware update, which will introduce these features, will be released on Wednesday, July 2.

The guy who hacked Valve’s file server and stole credit card numbers of Steam Cyber Café users was caught by police in the Dutch town of Maastricht in the past week. According to the Dutch Ministry of the Interior, the 20 year old hacker had managed to “burn 13 million Euros playing poker online and shopping for notebooks, flat-screens and MP3 players” before he was caught.

He went by the online handle MaddoxX. “We also don’t want money from VALVe,” he wrote on the No-Steam forum last year. “We want a simple message on their site.”

MaddoxX is also charged with hacking his way into an Activision server and downloading an unfinished version of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, as well as stealing 50,000 credit card numbers from an English ticketing site.

Sony sure has some big plans for the PS3, as the company recently announced plans to bring movie rentals and downloads to the console, among other things. Earlier this week, the company showed off Life with PlayStation, a weather forecast and news service.

While the Wii also features the same thing, SCE CEO Kaz Hirai pointed out that it had prettier graphics and used the power of the Cell processor to render a very nice-looking Earth on your glorious high-definition television. Oh, and it offers location-based news service.

“It’s only the PS3 that can provide such a unique experience,” Hirai explained. “Life with PlayStation proposes a new lifestyle for PS3. As many people turn on their TVs in the morning when they wake up, users can use their PS3 to download worldwide news in real-time or check weather and temperature of travel destinations.”

Hirai also revealed that the software will let users view pictures on the world globe, according to where and when they were taken.

“In the future, we’ll build a system that can virtually present stored photos or movies according to recorded time and place, allowing users with their friends and family to enjoy them visually in chronological order.”

No release date or price was mentioned.

Microsoft has released a new digital rights management tool that allows gamers to more easily consolidate licenses for downloaded content to a single console for online and offline play. The tool, which performs entirely online, transfers licenses from old consoles on Microsoft’s website, and allows users to easily redownload the licenses to a new Xbox 360.

Xbox 360 users previously could not run content and games on a new console without an active Xbox Live connection. The license migration tool lifts this restriction when the licenses are transferred, allowing content to effectively function as it had on the original system.

Capcom today announced that the company has chosen to license Unreal Engine 3 for a second time, for a new unnamed title. It is said to be in development at a European studio, also unnamed, who are said to be familiar with the technology. The company has already used the middleware solution for Dark Void, which is being worked on by Seattle-based developer Airtight Games.

“Unreal Engine 3 is a perfect fit for this project being developed in Europe, and is capable of ensuring a high-quality game experience. Not only does the development team have thorough knowledge of Unreal Engine 3, the general versatility of Unreal Engine 3 will fully meet the requirements particular to this project”, said Keiji Inafune, managing corporate officer at Capcom’s R&D management group.

Which franchise revival do you think Capcom is working on now? Or is it a completely new franchise like Dark Void?

Square Enix fans will be delighted to know that the publisher plans on re-releasing a bunch of its PS1 favorites on the PlayStation Network. This news come from Japan, where the company is looking to release Einhander, Astronoka, Rakugaki Showtime, Raystorm, Fighters Impact and Xenogears on the service for 600 yen each. That’s about $5.50 per game.

It is not known if the publisher plans to do the same for other regions, though it would be pretty awesome if they did.

In today’s first bit of DRM news, Atari has announced that that the PC version of Alone in the Dark will ship with SecuROM activation. The DRM works on Windows XP and Windows Vista, having players go online and download an additional component before being able to play the game.

Once the game has been activated, however, it can be played offline. Uninstalling the game will revoke the serial number, letting users install it on another computer.

Alone in the Dark is already out in Europe and will be out in North America next week for PC, PS2, Xbox 360 and Wii; a PS3 version is scheduled for release sometime later this year.

EA is looking into standalone expansions by releasing Kane’s Wrath on Xbox 360 next week. The publisher is hoping to “test the waters” through the Command & Conquer 3 expansion; the PC version requires a copy of the original game, though the Xbox 360 version does not require so.

“We’re going to test the waters here with the Xbox 360 version as a standalone version,” lead producer Jim Vessella told Shacknews. “If the fans and the audience like that formula, then perhaps we’ll investigate the standalone on PC in the future.”

When asked why they did not do the same for PC, Vessella replied: “the whole attachment to the base game is a formula that we’ve used for over a decade now with expansion packs. It was something that we were really comfortable with, we wanted to keep it that way for the PC.”

Let’s hope they do the same thing for PC expansions as well. Finding out those pesky discs once you have played them can be quite a hassle.

While gamers crave longer and longer games, Deus Ex series creator Warren Spector believes that shorter games will come as development budgets continue to increase.”

Game costs are going to be $35-40 million, even $100 million, and the expectations are huge,” he said at last week’s Game Education Summit. “You have to differentiate yourselves. One-hundred hour games are on the way out.

“How many of you have finished [Grand Theft Auto IV]? Two percent, probably. If we’re spending $100 million on a game, we want you to see the last level,” he continued. “Building a game is as complex as making as a Hollywood movie… It used to be that you could trade off gameplay for graphics, but you can’t do that anymore .”

Spector is currently working at the Disney-owned Junction Point Studios. The studio is yet to announce or release any games.

On the PlayStation Blog is a post that announces a new firmware update for the PS3, revealing that it will introduce Achievement-like “trophies” and in-game XMB. While no release date was given, the v2.40 update is expected this Summer.

The firmware will let users access the game’s XMB front-end interface while playing a game. The interface allows players to navigate friends lists and music. The often rumored “trophies” can be compared to Xbox Live’s Achievements, which recognizes certain actions and feats players have performed in a game.

Sony added that further details on the firmware will be revealed soon.