sinister rouge writes "The BBC has a story confirming a cut price PlayStation 3 with a 40GB hard drive and no backwards compatibility with previous consoles. The console is set to go on sale later this month in Europe, the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand. No word yet on that particular SKU for the North American market. '[Ray Maguire, head of PlayStation UK,] said: "The people who want to get into new technology early are prepared to pay a premium. We want to get the console to the next level; we have re-engineered the machine to bring the price down. We have invested a lot of money in reaching this price point." Sony is still losing money on each console sold, said Mr Maguire, but would lose less money on the 40GB machine. "We are in an investment phase," he said.'"

jasoncart writes "Microsoft today confirmed the news that has been speculated for some days, that Halo developer Bungie is 'on the path' to becoming an independent company. Microsoft describes this as an 'evolution' of their relationship, but no concrete reason is given for this move. 'Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, said the company was "supporting Bungie's desire to return to its independent roots". However, he added, Microsoft "will continue to invest in our Halo entertainment property with Bungie and other partners, such as Peter Jackson, on a new interactive series set in the Halo universe". "We look forward to great success with Bungie as our long-term relationship continues to evolve through Halo-related titles and new IP created by Bungie," he added.'" MTV wonders out loud ... if Bungie doesn't make Halo 4 who will? The official press release from Bungie gives you the same information from the other side, as does an interview with Frankie at GameDailyBiz. Update: 10/05 21:25 GMT by Z : In the wake of the announcement Kotaku has a quickie email interview discussing the future of the company.

Joystiq notes that along with Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2, folks who purchase Valve's Orange Box compilation will also be getting a musical treat. 'Geek Troubadour' Jonathan Coulton composed an entirely new song for the offering, apparently with help from the Valve design team. "At this point, with less than a week to go before the game's (games'? gameses'?) release, we're surprised the track hasn't already made its way to the seedy, illicit , peer-to-peer underbelly of the internet. Hey record industry, you should take notes!" The official Coulton site has plenty of information about the singer, and you can see his command performance of 're: your brains' from this year's PAX at the Penny Arcade site.

While some companies have embraced their games' parodies (like SOE and NeverQuest), others are less pleased by the sincerest form of flattery. Specifically, some of the folks at Rockstar were less than pleased by the 'Grand Theft Scratchy: Blood Island' portion of the game. "'I was always under the impression that when you do parody, it's a sign of respect... If we make fun of Grand Theft Auto, we're not going to hurt the sales of Grand Theft Auto... But yeah, we've definitely had some reactions - we've had to pull stuff from the game', The Simpsons lead designer Greg Rizzer revealed to us in an interview earlier this week. 'But that's cool to me', Rizzer continued. 'It's cool to still know, I feel, that the industry's been waiting for a game like this to come along. It's been too long since we really had one, and of course [there's] The Simpsons being the perfect vehicle to poke fun at the games industry.'"

Via Joystiq comes a story from the European game development website Develop, saying that the UK developer Free Radical will be offering employees overtime for crunch mode sessions. "Steve Ellis of Free Radical says the days of 'bonuses that pay off your mortgage are long gone' and that they've 'decided to start paying people for the work that they do -- even when that work is outside their normal hours.' Ellis says that the industry as a whole will eventually go this way, but they prefer to do it sooner rather than later. Although there are so many companies who are guilty of not paying their employees for working extra hours, EA gets picked on more often than not because of the infamous EA Spouse saga."

Mistwalker studios, the studio headed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, has announced they are hard at work on two RPGs for the Nintendo DS. One is a portable version of their just-released-for-360 title Blue Dragon, while a second title called AWAY: Tsuresarareta Hitobito has few details attached at this point. "Little is known about the title outside of the fact that it's being developed by Artoon. They are notable for having Naoto Oshima--character designer for Sonic and Dr. Robotnik--on board. The only hint about the game is the subtitle, 'Tsuresarareta Hitobito,' which means 'kidnapped people'--strange considering the release date of January 31, 2008 is quickly approaching." Great news for RPG-loving DS owners, who can add these titles to the stack with Dragon Quest IX . It's also an interesting example of a primarily Microsoft studio creating content for a Nintendo console, which coincides with rumours of Viva Pinata for the Wii currently in the works.

Just on the heels of the good news for PSP Slim sales numbers comes an analysis by a Japanese business firm essentially saying that the PSP's competitor, the DS, is single-handedly driving the Japanese gaming market. "The DS, which Enterbrain says sold 3.478 million units (including both DS and DS Lite) in the fiscal first half, outsold Sony's PSP, at 1.07 million units, about three to one. Enterbrain added that console sales, encompassing Wii and PlayStation 3, also bolstered the market, which expanded by 33.5 percent to ¥138.3 billion ($1.2 billion), while software sales were also up 12.8 percent to ¥154.5 billion ($1.34 billion). Reuters cited the same Enterbrain report when it noted that in April through September, Wii outsold the PlayStation 3 by more than four to one in Japan, with 1.6 Wii units sold versus 385,492 PS3s."

Writing for the Escapist, author Sean Sands takes a hard look at Microsoft's Games for Windows project. The PC version of Xbox live, as well as the coherent branding they've handed out to publishers, doesn't appear to be having the kind of effect they were hoping for. Most especially, Sands points out, when players have the recently released Steam Community as an alternative: "Valve's latest community features, while they don't connect PC to console, have offered virtually every other meaningful feature in a free and functional package. Steam isn't only beating Microsoft at its own game, it's taking Microsoft's lunch money and leaving it tied to the tether-ball pole."

The always popular Michael Pachter offered up the opinion last week that LittleBigPlanet may be the title the PlayStation 3 needs to have breakout success. In a report pointing out failings on Microsoft and Sony's part to appeal to 'family gamers', Pachter said: "After seeing LittleBigPlanet at TGS, I believe it could be a console mover. The game is really innovative, and I think it adds a family element that is so far missing from both the Xbox 360 and the PS3. If they can accompany that game's launch with a price cut (or a lower priced SKU), I think we'll see a spike in sales." The game is really innovative, and I'm looking forward to it a bunch ... but I think I agree with the folks at Ars when they say the pricetag is still too high to appeal to family gamers.

Next Generation is reporting on comments from Epic's Mark Rein, who participated in an IRC chat with some members of the Unreal community recently. In the chat, Rein revealed that Unreal Tournament 3 will not feature the ability for PS3 and PC players to compete on the same servers. Said Rein, "We looked at how this would impact our ability to respond quickly to things happening at internet speed on the PC side of the equation and realized that this would not be in the best interests of our very loyal PC userbase because we would constantly be holding on to updates to wait until they passed cert on the console platform. Our PC fanbase is of ultimate importance to us. They are our bread and butter. We can't let them down or compromise their experience in any way to accommodate cross platform play."

Dr. Eggman writes "GameDaily.com announces that at long last, Half-Life: The Orange Box has gone gold. The release date has been set for October 10th. Although Valve recently announced that the company shall reevaluate episodic content, Newell has spoken to CVG, reassuringly stating that there is lots of Half-Life left at Valve. Expect more interesting stories like Portal to come out of Valve as they trickle out what they refer internally to as 'The [Half-Life] Bible.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Jack Thompson has done it again, now by making available gay porn for unlimited viewing on public records. Judge Jordan wrote on an issued order: 'The attached exhibit, which includes several graphic images of oral and genital sex between adult males, was filed electronically in the docket in this case, without prior permission from the court... To the extent that the other attorney's alleged conduct is in any way relevant... there was no need for Mr. Thompson to file these graphic images in the public record. A simple reference to the website and its alleged links would have sufficed...'" I'm usually not a fan of giving Thompson continued free publicity, but some of the things he does are just too outlandish not to share.

jkcity writes "In a bizarre move Aurora Technology the owners of the King of the World MMORPG has taken the unusual step of banning men who play women characters but the ban itself does not stretch to women playing men. If you want to play as a woman now in game you have to prove you are a women via web cam. This is something that people ask for in many mmorpgs I myself have seen people say people who play women in EVE online as being some kind of degenerate but how long can a policy of verification by web cam last since its so easy to get around it doesn't seem to solve much and is an insult to many."

Tjeerd writes "Rumors of Google's plans to create a virtual world that rivals that of Second Life have popped up once again over the weekend. The company could now be collaborating with Arizona State University to test the 3D social network, which may be tied into Google's current applications of Google Earth and Google Maps."

GamePolitics is reporting that anti-game advocate Jack Thompson is seeking to have Halo 3 declared a nuisance to the public in Florida. He tried the same stunt with Bully, and failed then too. "As with Bully, Thompson clearly hopes the court will grant him a hearing. Although after last year's well-publicized Bully performance, which earned Thompson a Bar complaint from presiding Judge Ronald Friedman, that seems unlikely. More troubling by far are the long term implications of this action. Thompson apparently feels emboldened to invoke Florida's public nuisance law against any video game he desires to target. That is the essence of censorship and the video game industry cannot allow it to continue on any number of grounds - legal, moral or creative."

Bayscribe writes "Vyro Games, a Dublin Ireland company, unveils a device today that forces you to relax while playing games. It is called a PiP, or "Personal Input Pod," and it measures things like the moisture in your hand to assess whether you're stressed. If you're showing signs of stress, your performance in a game deteriorates. If you relax, you do much better. The PiP communicates wirelessly with software on devices such as mobile phones, PCs or games consoles... If you relax, the dragon spreads its wings and flies. If not, it stumbles all over the place."

Tabernaque86 writes "What started as joke among gamers Sony is now using as a Christmas advertising campaign. Kaz Hirai, president of the games unit, has been quoted as saying that the PlayStation 3 'makes a great Blu-Ray player'. That theme will be central to a wave of ads in North America and Europe. From the article: 'Sony on Thursday disappointed analysts by failing to cut the PS3's price, but Mr Hirai did not rule out a future price cut. "Going aggressive only on price without being able to back it up with content doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me," he said. A price cut would have a "real impact" on sales only if there were enough software titles to support the PS3. But analysts were skeptical and said Sony could miss its shipment targets for the year. "Without a price cut close to Christmas, reaching 11m shipments is going to be very tough," said David Gibson, analyst at Macquarie in Tokyo.'" This is regrettable, too, because there really are a number of strong titles coming out for the console this year.

Kotaku has a list of PlayStation 3 titles compatible with the new rumble-enabled controller just announced this week at TGS. Most of the upcoming high profile titles for the console are on the list, and several already-released games will apparently become compatible with a quick software update. Some highlights from the list: "The Darkness, Devil May Cry 4, Turok, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, Burnout Paradise, RAGE, METAL GEAR SOLID 4 GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS, Condemned, Folklore, Heavenly Sword, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Resistance: Fall of Man SOCOM: Confrontation, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Warhawk"

Perhaps proving that Sony has something to their 'bigger disc as standard' argument, IGN is reporting that Lost Odyssey will span multiple DVDs when it is released for the Xbox 360 next year. "Hot on the heels of the three DVD long Blue Dragon, Sakaguchi informed the crowd that Lost Odyssey will span a massive four DVDs. The game, which uses a mixture of CG and real-time cutscenes, will last roughly 40 to 50 hours. Lost Odyssey will follow in Blue Dragon's footsteps in another way as well. The team plans to ship the game with multiple language options, including English and Japanese. However, the voice animations will be synched to English on all versions, including the Japanese release."

Gamasutra has up a massive interview with some of the executives at Gamestop, the largest games-specific retailer here in the US. Speaking with folks like senior merchandising VP Bob McKenzie and marketing VP Tom DeNapoli, the site explores the retailer's unique position within the gaming world, their views on the three consoles, and even the possibility that they might someday stock AO titles. "Gamasutra: There was a point where Manhunt 2 was considered an AO game. Is an AO game something that you would consider selling if it came out? Is it something that you would consider carrying in your stores? Bob McKenzie: I think that it is an opportunity that we would have to look at on a case-by-case. In this situation, I'm glad that they went back, reworked it, and it will be M rated. I can't say that we would have supported it at AO, and I can't say that we won't. In the past, when there was an AO game such as Leisure Suit Larry from a couple of years ago, GameStop wouldn't support that game in our retail stores. However, that was before the merger with Electronics Boutique, and EB did take the title into their retail stores. So, again, it is a situation that we have to take on a case-by-case. But I have to say that we prefer that the AO games are not anything that we are out there in the market looking for."