PSP gaming phone spotted

THE TEAM FROM Harmonix announced a donation of $2,000 to ensure Guitar Hero fan site Score Hero can keep on running.

A server upgrade for the popular forums are now possible. Over $10,000 has now been raised.

"Hey everyone, I just kicked in a big donation on behalf of the whole crew here at Harmonix. You guys are awesome!" posted Harmonix president Alex Rigopulos on the site's forums.

A new Crysis trailer is now available for download, showcasing some more of the core technology from this first person shooter seen in the INQ several times in the past.

If the amazing graphical effects of Crysis and Directx10 don't do it for you, maybe the retro feel of Leisure Suit Larry on your mobile will satisfy your needs.

Vivendi Games Mobile says that the first Leisure Suit Larry for mobiles will be 'Love for Sail', (the seventh installment in the Larry series). and Europeans will be able to purchase it in June.

Activision's recent financial report suggests Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will be with us by the end of summer.

In Activision's outlook for the year ahead, the paper states the game is due in the second quarter of fiscal 2008, which narrows it down to July, August, or September, so Eurogamer suspects.

If you're tired of Quake, fear not, as Id Software's Todd Hollenshead has revealed that the Quake and Doom creator is working on a new gaming franchise, powered by a brand new engine from developer John Carmack, GamesIndustry.biz reports.

Redwood, California-based nonprofit group HopeLab has created a computer game titled Re-Mission. With a distribution deal by health insurer Cigna Corp., the game will be sent free-of-charge to any cancer patients who want it. Cigna national medical director Dr. Glenn Pomerantz says the game, "allows teens to visualize what cancer cells look like" and understand how to fight them." Copies of the game are also freely available to doctors and medical facilities, so says 1up.com.

Wii/DS
Nintendo has said that it may buck the 5-6 cyclic trend in the games industry for console releases.

Considering Nintendo has been frequently late in the console wars, which has undoubtedly harmed its chances in several generations of gaming, we suspect it may fall foul if it intends to once again allow competitors to grab a foot hold before releasing a new console.

Despite also being incredibly late to the online gaming market, Nintendo has hd over five million people tapping into Nintendo's DS Wi-Fi service, 18 months after it debuted.

Ubisoft has finally come out with what we could of told the firm some time ago - the French firm has admitted that a number of its early Wii titles were rushed and lacked quality.

Speaking to German magazine Spiegel (via Next-gen.biz), Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot and the company's European head, Alain Corre admitted, "We made mistakes," having been over-eager to capitalize on the promise of the Wii. They stated that future titles would be of a higher quality.

Check your DS catalogue too.

Wired has an in-depth look at the Wii virtual console and the quality of titles available for download. Worth a look before paying out your hard earned cash.

Though Nintendo just announced that the Wii back catalogue of downloadable virtual console games is now up to a hundred titles, some people have been rightly asking if the quality of the titles is good enough, considering some of them weren't worth owning the first time around. TG Daily asks the question we've all been thinking.

This is a Japan-only for now, but Nintendo has just announced two new colours for the DS Lite. The two colors are Metallic Rose, which looks reddish-pink, and Gloss Silver, which is, erm, silver. Pictures here.

If you've already got a DS you may wish to purchase cake instead. Mario cake.

PS3/PSP
Sony's mobile phone division is apparently looking at a gaming-centric phone, a market that so far has had a history of failure, of which Nokia can easily testify to.

A patent from late last year shows a device that looks something like a PSP retooled to work as a mobile phone. The screen on phone can flip 90 degrees to make it look ike a slim PDA, or the phone can be turned horizontally to have a landscape mode screen orientation and a control set much like a handheld gaming device.

This discovery comes soon after the announcement that VOIP functionality on the PSP was to be officially supported by Sony, last week.

Soon after the release of the PS3 1.80 firmware, the announced release of the PSP firmware version 3.50 has been delivered.

The new firmware incorporates "Remote Play" functionality, which allows access to videos, music, and pictures on your home PS3 running PS3 firmware 1.80 over the Internet.

The update also includes an RSS Channel Guide.

The 1.80 PS3 firmware incorporated game and DVD upscaling, which isn't a particularly trivial upgrade. IGN did some extensive testing on the PS3's new update, and has some major comparison footage and documentary here.

Sony's going to have to drop the PS3's price by $200 this summer if it wants to be a player in this generation so says an analyst at the Bank of America.

But any other expected price cut won't improve sales says the analyst Michael L. Savner. "Despite growing anticipation that a USD 100 price cut for the PS3 is imminent this summer or early fall, we do not believe such a move would meaningfully improve stagnant PS3 sales," said Savner, speaking to Game Daily.

It seems most software houses are pre-occupied with the Nintendo Wii. "We are growing more concerned that a share shift away from Sony and Microsoft to Nintendo's Wii platform is incrementally negative of all third-party publishers." he said.

However, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has moved to reject speculation that a PS3 price may be in the works. Sony's director of communications Nick Sharples told MCV that analysts' recent conjecture concerning a PS3 price cut based on new manufacturing strategies was unfounded.

"There's absolutely nothing you can read from that. The idea of price certainly doesn't follow on to any adjustment in production. Analysts may wish to think so, but there's no basis of fact in any of it,” he said.

A large list of UPnP devices that work with the PS3, compiled by Joystiq and the PS3mods blog, is a rather extensive collection of software spanning multiple platforms including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Check it out via this link.

New Tekken 6 screenshots have been released, and rumours persist it will also make a journey to the 360 come release.

Xbox 360
Plenty more Halo 3 news this week, mostly courtesy of the ongoing beta test.

Joystiq has several videos, one which shows the Wraith vehicle, along with the energy sword on the same page.

Joystiq also reports on several new armour types, along with notable achievements available in the single player game.

At this rate there won't be much left to reveal in the final game.

Still jealous of the Wii controller? Put those green eyes away, one hacker with a surplus of time on his hands has modded a Wii controller to work on an Xbox 360. Don't get too excited though, at present only the directional pad and buttons work, so no accelerometer action just yet for your 360.

As the INQ previously reported, hackers have circumvented the previous banning (and future attempting banning) of modded consoles on Xbox Live. We suspect Microsoft will soon get round the hack. More here at Xbox-scene. µ

See Also
Further PS3 slatings and PSP 2 whisperings
Sony PS3-based PSX appears on the horizon
Games industry flashes wad, swaggers
Microsoft gaming labelled a "disastrous endeavour"