In terms of actual pricing of the service itself, there are a few different choices users can select from; rent games, buy games or pay a monthly subscription to get access to a catalogue of over 100 games in a specific selection.

Renting is available in 3 and 5 day formats and prices for these vary depending on the title. The price for a full game purchase is anywhere from £1.99 upwards, with new games launching at around £34.99.

The PlayPack costs £6.99 per month, and also gives subscribers a 30% discount on full game purchase prices.

Guillaume de Fondaumiere claims that the PlayStation 3-exclusive title has lost out on between €5 to €10 million due to sales of their flagship title in the second hand market.

These comments are sure to add more weight to the critics (mainly developers and publishers) who are fighting for the use of  ‘online passes’ for all games in future that offer an online experience. The idea behind the passes is that the original buyer gets a free pass with the new copy of the game and then any subsequent purchases of that disc must by the online pass to access all the features.

This has hit a sore nerve with many gamers, namely the ones who like to buy games on a budget or those who buy early and trade-in their games while they still have a high value.

By online game retailers, I don’t mean they only sell games, but I mean they significantly sell games, i.e. it isn’t just a selection of 5 or 6 games.

5. Zavvi/The Hut

The Hut seem to own quite a few websites (or someone owns websites that own The Hut), yet despite having the same, simple template system, they never seem to have the same prices. This is why I specified Zavvi separately, because in my experience, Zavvi has always been just that little bit cheaper than the rest of the The Hut empire. It’s just a shame their service is comparable to that found in most KFCs.

4. eBay

Ah, eBay. I just had to feature the biggest auctioning website on here. know it isn’t technically an e-tailer, but anywhere where you can pick up a brand new game for two-thirds of the retail price has got to be in the top 5. Granted getting what yo want is always a potential rather than a guarantee and service can be a mixed bag, hence the fourth place.

3. Amazon.co.uk

Need I say more?

2. Play.com

It was a tough decision choosing whether to rank Play.com above Amazon.co.uk, in the end I went with Play because it feels more patriotic (Amazon.com is probably the first or second best in the US right?). Plus on the whole i believe Play.com tend to slightly edge out Amazon in their pricing.

1. ShopTo.net

I just love ShopTo.net, they always seem to be amongst the lowest, if not the lowest, when it comes to game prices. Add to this their other features like  pre-order credit and the ability to get them to send you a free text to your mobile when you oder is dispatched.

So, there you have it, my own, personal, top 5 e-tailers in the UK. Obviously, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so what’s yours?

Bandit (it is technically called Bandit!) is available to play in three chat rooms at Tombola Bingo and they’re all pub-themed so you’ll feel right at home. Get the info on the site itself and how to sign up at ohmybingo.com and then head over to The King’s Head, The Ship and The Red Lion rooms to place your first bets.

You can bet as little as 10p on Bandit games if you like, or go the whole hog and set £2 as your stake. Either way, there are jackpots of up to £20,000 to be won – ever slightly more than you’d get in your standard pub fruit machine, wouldn’t you agree?

This is a really fun game to play and it’s only mildly addictive, so you really should try it. Tombola is always coming up with new games and promotions, so we can’t be sure how long Bandit will be around. Better hop to it!

Activision have only gone and released the official launch trailer to Call of Duty: Black Ops in anticipation of the game’s release in just over a week from now.

You can see the trailer in all its glory below and start getting yourself psyched for what is most likely going to be the biggest selling game of 2010, if not all time by the way things look to be going.

I think this trailer helps to clear up any concerns gamers may have had about Treyarch being able to fill the gap left by Infinity Ward and their Modern Warfare series.

The video, which is entitled ‘LOVEFiLM is coming to PlayStation 3′, has now been pulled, but before this happened it gave away a bit of information and showed off some of the features you can expect from this new app:

• Launches Autumn 2010
• Stream ‘thousands’ of titles
• Ability to browse films by ‘Most Watched’, ‘Highest Rated’ and more
• Free to anyone with a suitable LoveFilm package
• There will be free trials and incentives to entice new subscribers

The fact the video has been removed and no official announcement has been made suggests that this may have been premature, so any of the features above may not be in the final product, or there may even be more.

The bundle will only be available for a short period of time and is sure to sell out rapidly given the popularity of the Halo series. It features an extra controller, so you get two in the pack, both of which are styled to match the sleek silver look of the Halo: Reach Xbox 360 itself.

As the console is the new slim version, you also get a 250GB hard drive and the super-fast built-in WiFi N. Not to mention the important part for many; a copy of the game, Halo: Reach, of course.

If you live in the US, you can pre-order the console from Amazon right now for the great price of $399.

If you live in the UK like me, I’m afraid you are going to have to buy it from GAME or Gamestation as they have bagged exclusive rights to sell the game here – it will be retailing for £249.99.

Pre-order Halo: Reach Limited Edition Xbox 360 now on Amazon US.

There’s obviously enough of the ‘love’ out there for a million to be sold though, and with many of these tiny-sized applications offering more palytime than a full retail game, its for good reason they sell well. It is still a longshot off the iStore app-madness that ahs gripped the nation though, as a million digital sales is a mere speck compared to the number of Apps sold on the iPhone each week.

Still, it is still a positive turn of events for Sony and hopefully it means future support is guaranteed, something that doesn’t seem to be required these days.

This tactic is not uncommon, as it has been employed by a number of games in an attempt to balance high quality graphics with stable frame rates. In fact, Rockstar’s own Grand Theft Auto IV was one such game to use the technique. However, the Xbox 360 iteration is said to be running at a more crystal clear, 720p.

There is no direct confirmation on this at the moment, so don’t jump the gun just yet. We’ll let you know when we hear more.

Not only does LittleBigPlanet jump from just a platformer to pretty much any genre the player wants it to be, it is also pushing forward the accessibility of the game to the point where you will be able to view any game photos and new levels as they are added, by going to a dedicated website.

The new website will be LBP.me, but is currently a non-existent site (no surprise). Players will also have social media-esque functionality through the website, with a unique page for each player, for example LBP.me/smokeybeef (SmokeyBeef being my PSN name).

To improve level sharing, you will be able to queue levels using a normal internet browser, which will then automatically download when you sign into the game on your PlayStation 3. As if that isn’t enough, each level will also have its own URL and something called a ‘QR code’ which can be shared over mobile, PlayStation Eye or any other similar means.

LittleBigPlanet 2 is shaping up to be a worthy sequel to a brilliant game. Oh, it’s backwards compatible too.

The details, which were posted on the new site (http://callofduty.com/blackops/) were quite scarce, but it has been revealed in a tweet that the first proper trailer will be going live tonight on SpikeTV. Here is the full tweet from @treyarch:

“The world-premier teaser for the next Call of Duty airs Friday NIGHT (12:40AM) on SpikeTV! http://bit.ly/9TF07″

Well, that’s everything I’m afraid, for any more details on the game itself you’ll just have to wait until the official teaser is launched later today.

Patrick Seybold, PlayStation representative, has tweeted the following:

“Congrats to Bungie. Marrying their creative minds and incredible talent to the power of PS3 will be like giving PS3 fans Halo on steroids.”

This shows that Sony, or at least Seybold, is extremely happy with this turn in events and could very well lead to some promising results for all those involved. One thing for sure is; it definitely will not be a new Halo as Microsoft own the rights to that game not Bungie.

The service is aimed at PS3 owners who are finding the space on their console is running out too fast, but don’t feel confident enough to change the HDD themselves (even though Sony made it mega easy). This upgrade doesn’t come for free though, consumers will have to dish out ¥18,000 to give their black beast a bigger storage capacity.

This is perfect for those too scared, or just too lazy, as it includes all the work required; from backing up and restoring data on the new drive to buying the hard drive itself. If this sounds good to you (and you happen to live in Japan) then head on over to the official SCEJ hard drive swapping service page.

How does this affect you?

When the original Xbox Live stops running, some of the classic games server will be taken offline with it. This includes big hitters like Halo 2 and Battlefront 2 – games that still garner a lot of support from their respective fan-bases. Halo 2 and similar games will still have their single player functionality, but all online attributes will no longer be available after today.

I was personally never a fan of the Halo series and haven’t touched an original Xbox game in years, but statistics show there are still plenty of people playing these games on a regular basis.

As we informed you a couple of days ago, FW 3.21 removes the ‘Other OS’ option on PS3s, similar to the PS3 Slim. However, new details have come to light:

1. The playback of certain PlayStation software titles has been improved – this seems to appear in every update though, so don’t go crazy with joy (I know you want to!).
2. MP4 video playback has an improved security, with some key vulnerabilities being removed. Again, calm yourself down.

That’s it! Yup, no massive new feature like cross game chat (do we really need it?) etc. Now you can go giddy with the joy of learning the true nature of PS3 FW 3.21.

Thanks go to TheSixthAxis