PS3 Fanboy

This brawler is hitting retail stores, so it's getting a Platinum. See the entire list here.

Theatrical releases:

• Burn After Reading
• Death Race
  
• The Duchess
  
• Eagle Eye
  
• Ghost Town
  
• The House Bunny
• Resident Evil: Degeneration
• The Women

Double features:

• Patriot Games & Sum of All Fears
• Italian Job & Shooter
  
• Coming to America & Trading Places
  
• Next & Face Off
  
• Spiderwick Chronicles & Nacho Libre
• The Ruins & Tomb Raider
• Cloverfield & Sleepy Hollow
• Payback & We Were Soldiers
• Drillbit Taylor & Norbit

Although Resident Evil: Degeneration takes place within the same universe as the games, this CG movie received the same mixed reviews as the flicks of the live-action trilogy. The Women unites a number of well-known female thespians in a commendable remake of the 1939 classic starring Joan Crawford. Eagle Eye requires a willing suspension of disbelief if you intent to enjoy it, but with the running time at 2 minutes shy of 2 hours, the whole charade simply goes on for too long. Theatrical releases are above, everything else (including TV releases) are after the jump:

Merry Christmas, Japan! While the Western world grows fat on its own laziness (not to mention a massive amount of Christmas food) Japanese game stores remain open to sell five new great PS3 games. What's that strange smell, you ask? That's our pure, unadulterated jealousy. We really want to play White Knight Chronicles. Here's the release list:

US Games
No new releases

EU Games

No new releases

Asian Games

• Alone In The Dark
• Bioshock
• Far Cry 2
• Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution
• White Knight Chronicles

In case you're wondering, your PS3 is region free. So, yes, you can import White Knight Chronicles if you so wish. We're not sure if it's the sort of game that will get downloadable content, but if it does you'll have to get it from the Japanese PSN Store. Tempting though, isn't it?

This past week's updates in Asia were rather satisfying. It's all about the games as Lumines Supernova, Crash Commando and a slew of others graced the digital store. See what else is in stock after the break.

You can catch the weekly Asian PS Store update every Sunday, while you can still enjoy EU and NA updates every Thursday. For PSP-related content, please check PSP Fanboy.

This will be the last Ask PS3F column we're going to write for this year. Are you sad? Well don't be, because we'll come back for sure in January. So cheer up and enjoy the holidays!

Keep checking back every weekend -- we'll be sure to answer all intelligent, fun, and relevant questions that you may have. If you haven't asked us anything yet ... why haven't you? Send an e-mail to majed @ ps3fanboy.com with the subject "Ask PS3 Fanboy." We'd like to stress, if your e-mail doesn't include that subject heading, your question will not be answered. If you've got PSP-related questions, be sure to ask them on Ask PSP Fanboy.

On the eve of the PlayStation 3's first birthday, the entire team was huddled inside PS Fanboy Headquarters, located deep inside a cavernous mountain off the coast of Bangladesh. There, we were visited by a celestial being who spoke only one immensely insightful sentence: "There is perhaps no greater litmus test for measuring success than to look back at one's past accomplishments."

At first, we weren't quite sure what our ethereal host wanted us to do with this incredibly important message. After hours upon hours of internal discussion, we made no headway into uncovering what we believe is certainly the key to finding the meaning of life.

With nothing else to do, we began talking about our undying love for the PlayStation 3, but the PS2 and PS1 kept creeping into the conversation until we started to compare the three systems. And now that the PlayStation 3 has just turned a year old, what better time to look back at how it stacks up against the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation than the present?

So sit down, grab a hot cup of cocoa and be prepared to be wowed, because some of our findings may surprise you.

As you can see above, there are a few things different between the two PS3 SKUs planned. (Hint: the obvious alterations concern high-def output and wireless connectivity -- though Bluetooth controllers should work just fine with both, with or without any chrome case highlighting.)

So what's HDMI, built-in multimedia card-reader slots, wireless internet connectivity, and an extra 40 gigabytes' hard disk space worth to you? $100? Now that Sony's gone with the 2-SKU approach with its next-gen hardware (a la the Xbox 360's premium and "Core" systems), we can expect some tough consumer choices after six months -- with console shortages possibly for another six months after that -- as $100 separates the base $499 and premium $599 versions of Sony's "Clear Black" hope.

HDMI is important to those who want to take full advantage of Blu-ray high def and have the new screens to use it; MemoryStick, SD, and CompactFlash slots would be nice for the PS3 memory-card users and those will run multimedia on the system; Wi-Fi's the only way to avoid stringing ethernet cables for online access; and 360 owners might appreciate the full 60GB available to potential buyers of the premium PS3 model. Neither model comes with a second HDMI port; thankfully, one should hopefully be all most users need. The details are laid out in a feature-comparison table at the end of Sony's official PS3 hardware press release, available in both Adobe Reader and Microsoft Word formats. Determine what's most important to your PS3 ambitions there.

[Image pieced together from the PlayStation.com forums; thanks, Guru]