PS3 Fanboy

PS Fanboy reader Josh attended last week's PlayStation.blog reader meet up in Orlando, Florida. There, the crowd got to enjoy some BBQ, WipEout, Buzz and the company of like-minded PlayStation fans. Most impressive: everyone that attended the meet up got a mysterious code ... which was later revealed to be a code to enter the LittleBigPlanet beta. Wow! What a nice surprise.

Check out Josh's Flickr to vicariously relive the events of the PS.blog meetup.

Are you in Los Angeles during the E3 convention next week? Good, because you'll have a chance to meet the PlayStation.Blog team and members of the PS3 Fanboy team at a meetup planned for next Tuesday. The get-together will happen at King Taco, and will happen hours after Sony's press conference o' megatons. Full details can be found on Facebook.

But wait, there's more! The Joystiq network meetup is happening next Thursday, and as usual, we'll have tons of swag in hand. The party is going down at the same place as last year: Mahalo HQ. Hope to see some familiar faces, and some new ones! Expect some special surprise guests. Once again, full details can be found on Facebook.

Let us know if you're going to be there! Can't wait to finally see you guys!

SCEE has been lambasted recently by members of the European PS3 community over their sub-par treatment of the region in comparison to America or Japan. One of the main requests is for a European equivalent to the PlayStation.Blog, which has again been brought up as a response to Sony's latest Blog entry. User Joakim Hagdahl made the request and was lucky enough to get a response from Jeff Rubenstein.

Rubenstein responded by saying that Sony "know[s] that there are a lot of readers coming here from beyond North America. We're in the process of working out how to make sure your needs are addressed. We hear what you're saying." This is a good thing, indeed. More European coverage on the PlayStation.Blog would be excellent, especially if SCEE staff start posting on it themselves. However, we're slightly worried that SCEA seems happy to respond to complaints while SCEE themselves have remained silent. Talk to us, SCEE -- that's all we want.

Sony continues its voyage into Web 2.0 with a dedicated Facebook page. An announcement on the PlayStation.Blog alerts users to its existence and points out exactly what's involved. In short, the Facebook page offers everything the PlayStation.Blog does, with a few little extras thrown in. Namely, an events service which lets people know where and when Sony will be representing the PS3 at various shows. Currently this only shows American events.

So show everyone on Facebook that you're a PS3 fan by clicking over to the PlayStation.Blog Facebook page. We have. On a sidenote -- this new Facebook Chat feature that appeared on the site today promises to make Facebook even more of a productivity drain. Students with impending deadlines, beware.

Mondays are about to get a lot more interesting for fans of Metal Gear Solid. Every week new info will be posted on the PlayStation.Blog for anyone who wants to learn more about Metal Gear Solid 4 and Metal Gear Online (we suspect that's a lot of you!) The first post details exactly what will take place during the Metal Gear Online beta that begins this month, including screenshots of the levels, weapon details and more.

The post also guides you through creating a Konami ID (previously a Japan-only affair, but now available worldwide) and setting yourself up to play the Metal Gear Online beta. The beta itself will take place between April 21st and May 5th (though it ends on May 6th for Europe) and you will require a beta key in order to take part (Europeans needn't worry about this - the beta is open for everyone in the region). As yet, there's no word on cross-region play, but we're keeping our fingers crossed.

We were incredibly pleased when SCEA started the PlayStation.Blog last June. Having a transparent method of communication between Sony and its consumers is invaluable. Since then we've seen the blog being used as both an up-front marketing tool and as a way for prominent members of the game development (and public relations) industry to communicate with the readers via the comments section. After almost a year of watching the site grow, it seems European PS3 owners are getting jealous of the service and want an equivalent site set up for PAL users.

A poll has been set up by a user of the official European PlayStation forums asking whether people would like to see an official PlayStation Blog for Europe. The overwhelming majority say that yes, they would like to see one while a tiny proportion (3% at the time of writing) claim that "ThreeSpeech is good enough" for them. While we respect ThreeSpeech, it's a flawed website which people seem to be wary or suspicious of due to the "semi-official" label. A fully transparent blog for Europe could only be a good thing and we would love to see it happen.

GDC takes place this week and, while we'll be reporting everything we possibly can, sometimes it's nicer to hear things straight from the horse's mouth. It seems Sony is aware of this and, on top of having numerous posts planned for the next seven days on the PlayStation.Blog, you can have Sony news sent straight to your mobile phone via Twitter. If you're new to the service, simply sign up and start following the PlayStation.Blog Twitter feed. If you attach your cell phone number to your Twitter account, then it will allow you to receive your friends' updates via text message.

Jeff Rubenstein, of the PlayStation.Blog, will be asking questions of various developers during the show and relaying their responses via the blog and the Twitter feed. Plus, who knows, if there are any interesting announcements made then you may hear about them without being anywhere near your computer. Just make sure you keep checking back here for all the latest PS3 news from GDC 2008.

That lovable rascal Dylan Jobe, Game Director of Warhawk, has posted up some info on the PlayStation.Blog regarding an upcoming update to the game. Version 1.3 has a huge feature list and will introduce some new gameplay elements whilst improving on various server options and online mechanics. The best thing about it though? It'll be completely free.

There are no new maps or vehicles (this is an update, not an expansion) but instead the game will be further improved with the inclusion of two new items for ground-troops. The Bio-Field Generator acts as a personal healing station that can be placed down like a mine and the Field Mechanic's Wrench is a one-hit-kill melee weapon that doubles as a quick-repair for vehicles. On top of this, the 1.3 patch will introduce better VOIP options as well as new paint schemes for the air-based vehicles chosen from the ongoing Warhawk Paint & Insignia contest.

Finally, Dylan mentions that their Home integration is coming along really nicely and that v1.3 will utilise game launching from inside Home. A great, much anticipated, feature. Interesting that we're seeing its implementation so soon, considering Home still has a TBA release date. Speaking of releases, when can we expect to see this update? It's in testing at the moment, with no expected release date for now. Hopefully we'll hear something more specific very soon. If you want to read more about the update (and you do) check out the post on the PlayStation.Blog.

Oh yeah, did we mention this will all be free?

[Thanks Hunter and Chubbs]

Unreal Tournament III finally gets released in the US tomorrow and one of its developers, Art Production Manager Chris Mielke, has posted some tips on the PlayStation.Blog. So if you're picking the game up at any point, make sure you take note of Chris' advice. While the main bulk of his post is a walkthrough of the level "Suspense" he also includes some random pearls of wisdom. Check out the blog post and try to osmose as much information as you can in readiness of tomorrow.

We love the idea of developers coming online and giving tips about their upcoming titles. We've seen this before with "things to try" lists for demos and would be happy to see the trend continue. Not that there are many other games coming for the rest of the year - which is fine by us. We're swamped with all the great releases over the last two months.

A recent update on the PlayStation.Blog revealed that the add-on packs for Folklore will be available on the American PSN Store tomorrow. While the Kidnapped Soul pack and the Under the Sea pack have been available in Europe for a wee while now, they will finally be making their way to the US Store this Thursday priced at $3.99 each or bundled together for $5.99.

Inside each pack is a new costume for Ellen or Keats as well as four new quests and a new Folk to capture, allowing you to keep the game going even after you've completed it. Fong also hints to more Folklore surprises coming in the future. For more details on each of the add-on packs check out the PlayStation.Blog.

Eric Lempel has written up a new post on the PlayStation.Blog in order to tell everyone that a new firmware update is on its way. 2.01 will be available in a few days and will "improve the stability" of the PlayStation 3. Lempel assures us there are specifics to be learnt at a later date and they will let the community know closer to the time.

We know that the PS3 will be receiving an update to allow its Blu-Ray features to support profile 1.1 at some point in the future. We also know that DivX support will be included in a future firmware update. Will these things be included in 2.01? Your guess is as good as ours. We'll let you know as soon as we find out more.

So apparently next Thursday is "Thanksgiving Day". Who knew? Because of this it seems that the PSN update will be occurring on Tuesday, instead. Why Tuesday? Why not Wednesday? Or Friday? Good questions! To be brutally honest, we have no idea. Word of the date change was found on the PlayStation.Blog where Grace Chen let everybody know in the comments section so we are doing our job and passing the message on to you, our dear readers.

Travis Williams, Senior Producer of PAIN, has written a post on the PlayStation.Blog today outlining the six different modes of gameplay the game will ship with when it is released later this month. A video has also been posted which showcases these gameplay modes - be sure to check it out. Williams is also desperate for people to continue making suggestions about the game so that they can be incorporated later, even going so far as to setup a poll on the PlayStation.Blog sidebar with the question "Who would you like to see in PAIN?" (We voted for "Sony Video Game Characters, of course).

PAIN's six gameplay modes will be split equally between single player and multiplayer and involve titles such as "Spank the monkey", "HORSE" and "PAINdemonium." It's clear the developers have a special sense of humour. So check out the blog post for more info, watch the video and vote on the poll. Isn't the internet grand?

Fancy some Sony swag? Of course you do! Well the PlayStation.Blog has a load of stuff piled up which they weren't able to give out at the various game shows over the last few months. If you want to win some then you'll need to jump through Sony's multiple hoops. The contest is only open to US residents over 13 years old. You have to send in your answers to 10 questions before the end of the month (that's October, for those of you who are temporally challenged).

If you answer all of the questions correctly you will be placed into a prize draw to win a pile of swag. There are only ten piles available. Some of the questions are pretty tough, but we'll give you a hint: Wikipedia. Here's a sample of the ten questions:

• What was the date of the launch of the first PlayStation in the U.S.?
• How many power cells and precursor orbs were there to collect in Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy?
• What is the weight difference between the original PSP and the recently announced PSP-2000?

Sony have updated the PlayStation.Blog to show today's US PSN release list. The content isn't out yet, but should be up within the next few hours. It's a pretty big update so let's get started:

• Stranglehold demo (Free)
• NBA Live 08 demo (Free)
• Motorstorm Coyote Weekend VIP Pass ($5.99)
• Motorstorm vehicle packs 1 to 4 ($0.99 each)
• Ninja Gaiden Sigma Weapons Master add-on ($2.99)
• Turok "Quiet Kills" trailer (Free)
• PixelJunk Racers trailer (Free)
• Heavenly Sword Making-Of episode 5 (Free)
• Heavenly Sword Anime episode 5 (Free)
• Lair "World in Chaos" trailer (Free)
• Motorstorm Coyote Revenger trailer (Free)
• Drillbit trailer (Free)
• Resident Evil: Extinction trailer (Free)
• Heavenly Sword Anime wallpaper (Free)

We promised not to moan about the EU store for at least a week, so let's just move on and start crowing about another excellent American update. How long can Sony keep up this pace? Hopefully for the foreseeable future. The PSN is finally becoming a proper content delivery system. For Americans, at least ...