PS3 Fanboy

Online tournament organizer GGL has partnered with Sony to deliver an official Warhawk tournament with some exciting prizes. Unfortunately, the prizes are only available to US citizens, but "Warhawk players from anywhere in the world are welcome to join open competition ladders on GGL's Warhawk Game Group" There's a practice ladder running right now, which will be reset when the official ladder opens on May 27th. This will give those of you who are a bit rusty the chance to shake off the cobwebs and get back to grips with the game.

The tournament is team based and is therefore probably better to play with people who you work well with. However, if you don't have any Warhawk playing friends, or need to bolster your team numbers a bit, you can find new team mates in GGL's "Find/Form a Squad" forum.

On the 29th of June the top 32 teams in the ladder will go on to the Elimination Bracket, where they will whittled down to a single winning team. That team will take home Limited Edition Warhawk statues (worth about $50) as well as an exclusive in-game item -- the Champion's Blade. This "replaces the knife weapon in game and looks completely different so that everyone you encounter will know you won the tournament."

Check out the website for more details and to sign up. Good luck!

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]

Team Xbox, a website not dedicated to the PS3 in the least, has posted some details that were scraped from the latest issue of PSM, the unofficial Playstation Magazine. In regards toward what the price for the system will be, PSM states "According to Sony, the price of the system 'will not retail for under' about $425 Japanese yen. Since game consoles are typically a little cheaper here in the U.S. than in Japan, it's reasonable for us to expect to see a price tag of $399."

Also, the piece states that the console will be launching during early November with a simultaneous release of Sony's online gaming service, which will allow for players to engage in online multiplayer for free. Lastly, the mag supposedly says, something far less believable than the previous statements, that original PS and PS2 games will be able to be played on the console in 720p, 1080i, and 1080p.

[Via Joystiq]