Asriel86 writes "Tokyo Game Show has just kicked off, and with quite a bang. Sony just officially announced the PStwociting a stateside release date of November 1st, 2004. The system will be 25% smaller than the current model, will feature a sleeker design, and a built-in Ethernet port (no adapter required). Sony also says that there will be 120 new Playstation 2 games with online compatibility by the end of the year. That equates to thirty games per month or about one game per day for the rest of 2004."

war3rd writes "Bethesda Softworks recently announced the development of the next game in The Elder Scrolls Series, (and follow-up to the game Morrowind) Oblivion. The next issue of Game Informer will have a 12 page spread with all the details and tons of screenshots."

Karl the Pagan writes "Following on the heels of a previous Steam-related story, Vivendi Universal may block Half-Life 2 distribution via Steam. Additional motions can be filed until November 18th, but since Sierra/VU have final QA approval on the HL2 gold is it possible they could delay the game until after the court decides on these motions?"

bairy writes "EA says The Sims 2 will refuse to run if you have Nero, CloneCD or Roxio's EasyCD installed on the same PC. Although they link to a patch to bypass this, a lot of people are upset by this."

Starsmore writes "IGN has a first look at the new Grand Theft Auto for the Game Boy Advance this October. From what I've read of the article, it harkens back to the visual styles of the original Grand Theft Auto games, while taking gameplay advice from the newer versions."

TeachingMachines writes "If you are interested in the cultural potential of gaming you might want to check out Social Impact Games. It's a site that catalogs links to over 200 games that are entertaining but not necessarily designed for the purpose of entertainment. For example, the Monkey Wrench Conspiracy is a first-person shooter game designed to teach mechanical design engineers to use 3-D CAD software. A game titled Incident Commander will model situations that include acts of terrorism, school hostage crises, and natural disasters."

Asriel86 writes "Sony will be officially unveiling twenty titles for their upcoming handheld, according to Gaming Horizon. These games will be revealed for the Playstation Portable (PSP) this week at the Tokyo Game Show, and will include an Ape Escape and Metal Gear Solid title."

bigman2003 writes "In a big move earlier this year, EA started to offer games with Xbox Live support. One of the big concessions Microsoft made was to let outside companies run their own servers on Xbox Live. Today EA is having problems, partially brought on by their new title, Burnout 3." Tycho has commentary on the issue as well.

Wolfy writes "The now resurrected Rockets on Prisoner, the Halo Movie Awards begun by Cobalt Nova last year, has begun! Voting will be done by the public, and awards will be hosted by That Weasel Television (with prizes supplied by Red vs Blue, Xbox Ottawa, and That Weasel). Read the rules to the contest and pick your favorite movies from the past year."

sanderb writes "The Doom 3 demo is out (on Windows). It does not seem to be linked on the Doom 3 site yet, but is available from e.g. 3D Gamers (includes torrent). Time to see what my FX5200 can do..." Other readers point to Fileaholic.Com and Shacknews.com.

Project Massive, a Carnegie Mellon University study into the habits and tendencies of Massively Multiplayer Gamers, has completed research into their first wave of questions. The results are available on their site, and include some interesting observations (nearly 30% of players spend time in a MMOG to interact with real-life friends). If you're interested in participating, their second wave of questions is available. Similar projects include Nick Yee's The Daedalus Project, the TerraNova Blog, and Constance Steinkuehler's Selected Papers. Thanks to clampe for the submission.

Jonathan Prugh writes "1UP has a story on Wanda and the Colossus, the "sequel" to Ico (formerly referred to by Sony as Nico). Screenshots are available at Namako Team, and IGN has an article on the sequel as well."

Dreadlord writes "After years of rumors, leaks, and delays, Neowin reports that the release candidate for Half-Life 2 has been sent to VU Games for approval. Valve's director of marketing confirmed the story to GameSpot yesterday. "Yes, the release candidate went to VUG yesterday," he said. First words on the submission came from Gabe Newell, CEO of Valve, "The RC went to VU yesterday," read Newell's one-line post on the hl2fallout.com forums."

TupperTrenine writes "Galactic Conquest, the Star Wars modification for Battlefield 1942, has just released their 4th edition of the mod. This continues their long history of updating a quality mod. Included are brand new vehicles like the Rebel T-3B Assault Tank, and the Imperial DTAP (Dual Trooper Arial Platform). Many textures and maps have been completely revamped, and there are 3 new maps: Dantooine, Lok, and Anchorhead."

Jason Shoulders writes "There's a discussion at Quake3World about an upcoming change in the first Doom 3 patch. Specifically, Id Software's Robert Duffy has updated his .plan file and mentions making 'r_skipNewAmbient, r_skipSpecular, r_skipBump, and r_shadows cheat protected'. This will force players to use features such as bump mapping and shadows. What settings gray the line between tweaking and cheating?"

Tim Grube writes "According to Gaming Horizon and several other industry insiders, Sony will be celebrating their fourth-year anniversary of the Playstation 2 on October 26th by releasing a smaller, more compact version of the game system with the new name PStwo. Some analysts believe the PStwo will retail at $149.99, the current price of the Playstation 2."

An anonymous reader writes "HardOCP has won a huge legal round against Infinium Labs. The WhereIsPhantom website has all the details, straight from the court dockets. There is a list of orders a mile long for Infinium Labs and owner Tim Roberts to comply with by Sept. 30th."

fredrikr writes "PBS is currently running a documentary on the history and relevance of video games and gaming: The Video Game Revolution. [Check Your Local Listings] From the website: "This is the story of how a whimsical invention of the 1960s helped spawn the computer industry as we know it. Video games have influenced the way children live and play, forever altered the entertainment industry, and even affected the way wars are fought. See how it all began and find out what it means for the future."

Gamemethod writes "Earlier this week the crew from Gamemethod went up to Canada to check out what's going on with the Nokia N-Gage. They also have a review of Bomberman, One and Rifts: Promise of Power".

Bagels writes "Square Enix is finally answering the prayers of thousands of FF7 fans with a side-story PS2 game called "Dirge of Cereberus: Final Fantasy VII." Not much is known yet - the game focuses on the character Vincent, it's set one year after the upcoming movie, Advent Children, and it's early in development as of now - but this is sure to be a hot topic amongst fans and critics of the series alike."