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Speaking at the European PlayStation event at E3 2008, Sony’s David Reeves has revealed Europe will be getting the Platinum games label as detailed in Sony’s press conference. Priced at £19.99/€29.99 the label will include at launch Resistance: Fall of Man, Heavenly Sword, MotorStorm, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Ratchet & Clank 3, Virtua Tennis 3 and Assasins Creed.

Speaking about the announcement David said “If you’re a longstanding PS3 owner with gaps in your collection – or perhaps you’ve just joined the family – the PS3 Platinum range is your chance to pick up some of the very best games at a wallet-friendly price,”…”With great titles spanning a huge breadth of gaming experiences, this August is a great time to be a PS3 owner.”

(Source: Eurogamer)

Speaking at the European Sony event at E3 2008, Sony’s David Reeves has stated that the recently announced PlayStation 3 video store will make it to Europe, just not right now. He states that Sony are committed to releasing the service in all territories. Besides the fact that most of the worlds most popular films are made in the US, David says “For us…local content is key and that is exactly what we’re working on right now”.

In other news if you sign into an American PlayStation Network account the video store does no show up and so cannot be used. This is in line with the Xbox 360 film download service where the content on offer is far better quality in the US store than the European one but cannot be accessed from outside the US.

(Source: Eurogamer)

Speaking at the European Sony E3 2008 press event, Sony’s David Reeves has confirmed Europe will finally be getting the 80gb PlayStation 3. To be released on August 27Th throughout Europe at a price of £299/€399. The 40gb version is to be discontinued. In typical Sony Europe style though David had this to say about a price cut on the 40gb “The 40GB model will be replaced by 80GB. Don’t ask if we’re going to go down in price on 40GB – the answer is no”. So you got that? don’t buy a PlayStation 3 any time in the next six weeks or you will feel a little ripped off when the new version comes out for the same price.

We will have to wait for confirmation to see if Dual Shock 3’s weill be included or if we still get the left over Six Axis bundled with it instead. No site that attended the event appears to have asked the question and the press release Sony sent out doesn’t specify.

(Source: MCV)

Microsoft has put out a press release which amongst other things states that the new Primetime service coming to Xbox 360 in Autumn will only be available in four countries at launch. The release states “Xbox LIVE Primetime is available in North America, France, Germany and the U.K.”.

EDIT: Oops, we got a bit slack with this one when rushing through posting so much news. The UK is of course four countries in itself and north America is not just the USA. Still it’s four regions at launch so not covering the whole of Europe or Australia.

No details are given on any plans or timescales for a launch of the service in other countries. The full press release can be found below with the relevent part highlighted:

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Sony is to finally implemented the last gen feature of rumble into it’s European PlayStation 3 controllers. The DualShock 3 will be available to buy separately as of July 4Th (that’s this Friday) for £39.99.  Sony Says:

“Making your gaming experience more immersive, more intuitive and more realistic, DUALSHOCK 3 is the only Bluetooth® controller combining vibration function and SIXAXIS features, and the first choice for anyone wanting to get the most out of their PS3 gaming experience.”

There’s no information given on the controller being bundled with a purchase of a PlayStation 3 console. Presumably then Sony are happy for people to have to buy the first choice controller separately while bundling the second choice one with console purchases until stocks have ran out.

Sony have announced in a press release following the “Gamers day” press conference that Europe will be receiving the Metal Gear Solid PS3 Hardware bundle but the contents will not match that offered in Japan or the US. Sadly in Europe we will have to be content with a standard six axis controller. Sony say in their press release this package will offer “millions of PS3 and MGS fans around the world the ultimate gaming combo”. Many gamers will find this statement a little hard to believe when other territories will get a Dualshock 3 controller in the bundle. While it may offer the ultimate combo in Japan and the US, it clearly doesn’t in Europe. Sony goes on to say  ”Available from June 12 and priced at 439,99 Euros this offer is one of the most exciting bundles to date”. 

Read the full press release below:

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Echocrome, the unique “perspective” puzzle game announced at last years E3 has been released on the US PlayStation store priced at $9.99. Sony has no news on when the game is planned to be released in Europe. A demo was also made available recently on the US store which is also yet to make it’s way to Europe. Presumably the delay is translating the game into all the different European languages. For all us English speaking people though the US version will do just fine. If you want the game but don’t want to wait then simply set up a US PlayStation store account and pay for the game using a prepaid American credit card from Entropay.

Nintendo will finally get round to releasing Super Smash Bros. Brawl in Europe on June 27th. You can check out our recent review of the game here. The date was included in a big release schedule announcement made by Nintendo today which features many titles across the Wii and DS platforms. Check out the full release list below if you feel inclined to.

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Infinity ward have announced that the Variety map pack for COD 4 will make it’s way onto the PlayStation Store on May 1st in Europe. A special Double EXP weekend will be held to celebrate the release running from 12:01 AM GMT on Friday, May 2nd through to 1:59 PM GMT on Sunday, May 4th. The map pack was released on Xbox 360 on May 4th at which point Xbox Live struggled to cope with demand as gamers rushed to download it. It will be interesting to see how PlayStation Network gets on when the download is released. Probably fine as GTA IV comes out only two days before, so there’s a small chance many people will be too busy playing that to notice.

Eurogamer reports that Konami have been in touch with them to advise that the European beta test for Metal Gear Solid will be announced “shortly”. Beta sign ups have been ongoing for some time in Japan for the test which begins on April the 17th. It’s not yet knwon when Konami plan to open up the test to Europe but with the full game due for release on June the 12th my bet is it will be before then!