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.

The UK pricing for the game is currently set at £16.99 (PSN) or 1600 MSP (XBLA). This may seem a little steep for a game that is now 4 years old, but rest assured Crytek have been hard at work porting the game using the latest engine’s features. They tell us to expect improved lighting and effects as part of the new release.

Keep an eye out fora firmer date over the next few weeks.

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 images make up a chart of pricing for the motion control gaming setups that has Kinect coming out cheapest, with Nintendo second and Sony last with the PlayStation Move.

This has garnered quite a big debate as of late, due to the fact that Microsoft has included a balance board in the Wii list of items and two navigation controllers on the PlayStation list, which some argue isn’t required as you are able to use existing PS3 controllers instead to save money.

This is an argument that can go either way, depending on how each company chooses to market it – the PlayStation Move offers a cheaper upfront cost if you start with just a one or two player setup. Meanwhile, the Kinect is probably the cheapest overall system because it doesn’t require any add-ons or controllers – something that is also touted as its limiting factor.

Source: Kotaku via Aiming at Gaming

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.

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

I’m not too sure if this is going to cause an uproar really; it’s a shame to lose features rather than gain them and it is presumably stemming from that GeoHot hack. Some are saying it is Sony being to lazy to fix the security, while others believe they are just playing it safe and plugging the potential security hole before it gets too late.

Either way – you will need to update if you want to continue to use your PS3 to play games online or do anything else that involves the PSN for that matter. And you can’t play games that require this version or higher in future. With 3D firmware coming soon, I can’t see too many holding on to that Other OS feature much longer.

The good news is, Infinity Ward have come up with the perfect cure, and it will be out at the end of this month!

To rid yourself of Mapathy for a period of time, simply obtain the latest Modern Warfare 2 DLC when it is released on March 30th. Unfortunately, all those sufferes on the PC or PlayStation 3 will have to wait a month longer for the MW2 DLC cure, as it is exclusive to Xbox 360 until then.

“Mapathy (n.) (or map-uh-thee – often expressed as, “How the hell did you know I was there?!”) is a state of indifference to the same old maps one has been playing for the last several months. The Mapathetic individual no longer derives pleasure from blowing up people hiding in the cockpit or on top of the crane. More than 20 million people may be at risk for Mapathy.”

Source

The official website also contains a number of countdowns to locked areas of the website, presumably so they can drip-feed information to the Sonic fans worldwide and bring the old hype train out of its station. There are three interesting things to note from the website:

• It clearly states ‘Episode 1′ under the Sonic The Hedgehog 4 logo – so it will be an episodic game
• The game is to be released digitally, via the PSN, Live and Wiiware platforms.
• There is another platform (or platforms) that are currently hidden – possibly iPad/iPhone?

If you want to see the trailer, you will have to go over to Gamespot for now, as they have an exclusive on it – but we’ll get a video here as soon as it gets YouTube’d.