One of those tricks is the possibility of free PSP Minis developer kits which would give a much larger group of developers access to the service. News comes to us from a recent interview done with Sony Europe’s Zeno Colaco where he was questioned about the possibility of a free dev kit, to which he responded:

“Further down the line, we may investigate a totally free model or supported model.”

However, Colaco says, having a free dev kit isn’t all peaches:

“There are dangers in having total open access; having six thousand applications where probably only thirty are discovered by the consumer. Some of the developers working on the App Store and PSP Minis tell us that they prefer our approach because they get more visibility.”

via pocketgamer

Well, it seems that a recent listing on Amazon.de (Germany’s Amazon) has notified us of just that, an Xbox 360 with a 250GB hard drive, Forza Motorspot 3 and 2 wireless controllers all for the price of €280 or about $379.

While the listing has since been pulled, I think it’s safe to assume that Microsoft will announce an Xbox 360 Uber Elite leading up to Forza Motorsport 3’s October 27th release date.

via engadget

“America and Europe is the same release. Usually the European version comes a year after, let’s say the Japanese release,” Yoshino said. “During the year, a lot of people are going to like, well this is old news now. We’re going to be losing a lot of interest if there is such a long time as a year. We’ve scheduled it in so we can get it out as quick as possible.”

Resonance of Fate will be released Spring of 2010, and the fourth quarter of this year in Japan.

Back in March, Nintendo revealed plans to expand to social networking options. Today, Nintendo has released a new application for the Nintendo DSi which allows players to upload their photos directly to Facebook.

To get setup, you need to link your DSi with your Facebook account via Facebook Connect. Once that’s done, a Facebook logo will appear on top of your photos. Users are allowed to upload entire albums at once (200 photos), and every photo after that, a new album is created.

The firmware is only exclusive to Japan, Europe, and Australia. No word on when the update will be released for North America.

The game will have the option to play as one of 19 different Pokémon, which will allow you to interact with over 490 Pokémon.

Explorers of Sky was released in Japan last April, and will be hitting Europe later this year, followed by a 2010 Australian release.

Namco Bandai Partners has confirmed that Ghostbusters will be released for the Xbox 360, PC, Wii and Nintendo DS on October 23rd.

If you want a good idea of how the game will be, be sure to check out our review of the US version of the game.

Read (VideoGamer)

Japan has already been playing the arcade version since April, so European gamers shouldn’t feel left out exclusively; the whole world gets the shaft.

SNK Playmore’s 2D fighting game will be out for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Read (EuroGamer)

Back in April Ubisoft let us know that Assassin’s Creed 2 would be hitting store shelves in time for this year’s holiday season but have kept generally quiet ever since.

Well today comes an announcement that Assassin’s Creed 2 will officially be available to American gamers on November 17th and European gamers on November 20th.

Given the generally good reception recieved by the first game Assassin’s Creed 2 is sure to please fans of the series.

Read (Kotaku)

Yousuke Saito, the executive producer of Nier, said in a group interview at E3 that they don’t know if Nier will be seeing a Japanese release. Due to focus on the American and European releases, the game is supposedly, according to Square Enix, not marketable to Eastern audiences.

Other reasons for the game not hitting the land of the rising sun include the “mature protagonist”, which is in contrast to the stereotypical young Japanese hero that we see in most Japanese titles. The publishers themselves are a Japanese based company, so it is a bit ironic their own country won’t be seeing the game.

Nier is scheduled to release sometime next year for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Read (1Up)

It seems that the system is even more popular than its predecessor; it has already sold over a million units across Europe since its launch in April of this year. It took a mere eight weeks to reach this milestone, a significant accomplishment when you consider that the DS Lite took thirteen weeks to sell over a million units. The previous models are still popular too, with half a million units of prior iterations being sold since the launch of the DSi.

It was recently made known that mega-mobile-publisher Gameloft has inked a deal with Sega Europe to produce mobile games based on Sega property:

“We are confident this agreement will be the first step towards a long term partnership between Gameloft and SEGA,” said Michel Guillemot, president, Gameloft. “SEGA’s great brands coupled with Gameloft’s long standing history of excellence in mobile game development can only result in an extraordinary mobile experience for consumers.”

The first game to come from the deal is Sonic Unleashed, which Gameloft is describing as a “high speed 2D side-scrolling adventure”.

Gamers will be able to choose from Sonic the Hedgehog or Werehog when this game is made available in Europe, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand in June. I wonder what other games Gameloft has cookin’.

Sony has cornered a small part of the market for this highly anticipated game however as non-Sony platform versions of the game will only be launching in North American markets. For Europe and PAL territories it’s going to be a Playstation exclusive title, with the PS3 and PS2 versions launching on June 19th along with the re-release of the film on Blu-ray. The PSP title will be available for those territories in Autumn of this year.

Sony has recently filed a patent that involces a remote controlled car controlled using a PSP. However, this isn’t your run of the mill remote control car.

The patent details a car that is outfitted with a camera and microphone which is then beamed back to the PSP that it’s controlled by.

The car will also be able to recognized various obstacles physically placed by the player and then render them into computer generated images. This feature raises all new possiblities when it comes to handheld racing games. Too bad we probably won’t see this thing, if at all, for a very long time.

Read (Siliconera)

For anyone who thought that a third addition to the Nintendo DS line wasn’t going to spurr the interest of consumers, think again.

Despite the downed economy Nintendo’s latest handheld, the Nintendo DSi, managed to sell in excess of 600,000 units in the United States and Europe on its release weekend. 300,000 units in each territory alone.

Considering the success of the Wii, and pretty much everything else Nintendo slaps their name on, this announcement is sure to have Nintendo jumping for joy, or jumping into their piles of money.

Read (Joystiq)

The bundle retails for $350 and comes with a 60 gigabyte Xbox 360 Pro unit, a one-month subscription to Xbox Live and copies of both Halo 3 and Halo Wars. Of course debate will rage about whether or not this bundle really constitutes the ultimate in Halo games, with probably a lot of people thinking that a true ‘Best Of’ bundle would include a disc of the original, or a voucher for downloading the original from the Xbox Originals.

via gamzsonev3

Just a friendly reminder: Nintendo has updated the European and Australian Virtual Console with the arcade classic Donkey Kong 3. On a smaller note, Enduro Racer was also added for the Sega Master System. Both of the titles retail for the standard 500 Wii Points.

This will see shorts produced by Hollywood talent such as Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean) and Michael Winterbottom (24 Hour Party People) featuring a number of well-known actors that will used to “capture the essence of PlayStation: Play, Create, Share, Connect, Discover and Challenge” according to Sony.

These shorts will be released for free via Europe’s PlayStation Store starting November 13, with the films set to air on ShortsTV in January 2009. It is not known if these films will make their way to North America.

Hit the jump for details on the films.

Bitter
Director: Joel Wilson and Jamie Campbell
Executive Producer: Michael Winterbottom

Joel Wilson and Jamie Campbell are two of the UK’s best young directors. They have worked on a number of short films as well as directing commercials for Virgin Trains, Kodak, Walkers Crisps and The Times newspaper and have now set up Eleven Film Limited, which has produced a number of Documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4. ‘Bitter’ is the tale of a man who is set to meet his daughter’s boyfriend for the first time. When he meets him he is faced with his worst nightmare – they are the same age and the meeting is a tale of the unexpected.

Citizen Hero
Director: Christophe Perie
Executive Producer: Jan Kounen

Christophe is a 30 year old young director. Before making movies, Christophe was artistic director for a number of commercials in Paris. During this period he had opportunity to work on some of the top French television commercials with feature film directors such as Remy Belvaux (Man Bites Dog) and Luc Besson (The Professional, The Fifth Element).

At the same time Christophe worked as extras assistant-director on international feature films with directors such as M.Night Shyamalan, Ron Howard, Alfunso Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, Oliver Schmitz, Walter Salles.

In 2007, Christophe did his first short film ‘CUISINE AMERICAINE’, a four minute long black comedy. Once he had completed that, he came back into the world of advertising, but this time as a director. CITIZEN HERO is his second short film.

Christophe is working on his first feature film project – he prepares to shoot in 2009.

Prison Food
Director: Uwe Flade
Executive Producer: Marc Rothemund

Uwe Flade was born in Munich in 1971, but now lives and works in Berlin where he is best known for working on music videos for artists including Depeche Mode, Franz Ferdinand, In Extremo, Nickelback and Rammstein. His film, Prison Food, set during a very special Sunday in a single prison cell, is a tale of entrapment, tension and the power of the human imagination. With only a ball and the human mind, to comfort them, Flade’s characters envision a better life for themselves, free from their repetitive, helpless state. It’s only disrupted by reality rudely shattering their delicate fantasies.

Hands
Director: Xavi Jose
Executive Producer: Montxo Armendariz

Director Xavi Jose has built up an impressive resume as a cinematographer, photographer, and director of photography–with work from Berlin to Barcelona, with clients from Calvin Klein to the Swedish band Sahara Hotnights under his belt. His film, Hands, his first in the director’s seat, is a fascinating and melancholy character portrayal that reveals a new facet with every viewing. The story of a couple who live with a damaging secret, and the actions that pull them apart, it’s a tale that ultimately grips and shocks us. Xavi has brought his full array of talents to creating a film that looks as good as the script reads.

8.3 Minutes
Director: Klaus Thymann
Executive Producer: Thomas Vinterberg

Highly acclaimed photographer Klaus Thymann has proved a multi-talented force to be reckoned with. His photographic work has been featured in ID, Dazed & Confused, The Face, and GQ. Thymann has done visual campaigns for Coca-Cola, Levi’s, Adidas, BMW, and Nike, and co-founded the art and design-based Black Box magazine. His short film, 8.3, uses elements from Mayan culture and modern technology to explore the divide between science and mysticism. Thymann’s work asks just what differentiates our beliefs in the spiritual world from the facts that we cannot ignore. It’s a work that builds tension upon itself piece by piece, until all is revealed in a dramatic, surprising conclusion.

The Dreaming
Director: Anthony Green
Executive Producer: Jerry Bruckheimer

Anthony Green is a young Canadian director interested in exploring global issues and contemporary morality through the medium of film. He currently lives in London, where as a recipient of the Graduate Merit Award, he is completing a post-graduate degree in Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. His dissertation will focus on the motion picture industry’s role in facilitating social change.

Aged 21, Anthony wrote and directed PIGEON, his first short film to attract international acclaim. The film recounts the true story of Susi Penzias and her attempt to flee Nazi-occupied France in 1941. Besides playing at over two dozen film festivals and winning numerous awards, PIGEON is employed as a model in Ken Dancynger and Pat Cooper’s Writing the Short Film, and used in classrooms worldwide as a tool for educating students about the Holocaust.

In 2005 Anthony earned a BFA with honours from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. His thesis film, SCREENING, explores the sensitive topic of racial profiling, capturing the anti-Islamic sentiment of post-9/11 America. The sixteen-minute short premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006, and has gone on to play at festivals worldwide, winning over 20 prestigious awards. Most notably, in the spring of 2007, SCREENING won the Student Academy Award for Best Narrative Picture, as well as 6 Golden Sheaf awards including Best Drama and Best Director. In March 2008, SCREENING was among the nominees for Best Live Action Short at the Canadian Genie Awards.

Between his degrees, Anthony spent two years documenting the Rolling Stones’ "Bigger Bang" tour. Through 120 cities, in 40 countries, Anthony and his partner recorded the on-stage and behind-the-scenes life of the legendary rock band. The resulting 70-minute documentary, entitled Salt of the Earth, packaged with three live concerts, has already become one of the best-selling music DVDs of all time.

Anthony Green was born on June 21, 1982 in Toronto, Canada. He is presently in the process of researching and developing a story for his first feature-length project.

Pokémon Platinum was released in Japan in September, and Captain Rainbow in August. It has always taken a very long time for Japanese games to hit the US, European, and Australian shores, so don’t be surprised if more delays are to occur.

Read (Vooks)

Probably attributed to the fact that the price was recently dropped, Microsoft has recently announced that their Xbox 360 console has sold more than 6 million units, to date, in Europe.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering how well the Wii’s price helped it sell, and with the 360’s recent price drops it puts it below that $250 hot spot.

With the Holidays quickly approaching the 360’s sales can only increase, but will the declining US economy effect those sales? Probably not, I mean $200 is almost free, right?

Via: Gamedaily