GT5 Prologue Demo appears on Japanese PS Store today

If you don't have a Japanese account, today would be a good day to invest five minutes setting one up.

I know a lot of people out there consider GT5 Prologue a 'demo'. A cut down version of the real thing.

I think of it as a segue. A nice little filler to help us transition from the old GT4 to the new GT5 - and keep us GT fans mildly happy whilst we wait for 'the big one' next year.

So it may seem a little odd that they are releasing a 'demo of a demo', but at least it's free so I'm not sure I really care about the semantics!

Domo arigato Sony-san - releases like these are most welcome. Now, if only you'd made the demo available worldwide, that would have definitely garnered an A+ from me.

US PS Store updates for 18th October

As per usual, the US store got an update that trumps our EU store. Here's the list of available items:

• Calling All Cars! - Game (re-issued at a new price of $4.99 until October 25th)
• Folklore - Demo
• Juiced 2 - Demo
• Devil May Cry 4 TGS - Video
• Turok "Dino Luring" - Video
• Uncharted "Tech Dive" - Video
• Burnout Paradise "Street Wheels" - Video
• Rail & Ties - Movie Trailer
• Incubus Alive at Red Rocks - Blu-Ray Movie Trailer
• Underworld - Blu-Ray Movie Trailer
• Eye of Judgment - Wallpapers

Although I'm personally not too excited at Juiced 2, I'm sure a lot of you will enjoy the demo.

Since I gave yesterday's EU store a grade, let's do it again: I give the US update a B (going in the right direction).

European PS Store updates for 18th October

It's that time of the week again - here's what's new at the EU PS Store:

• CTR: Crash Team Racing - PS1 Game
• Everybody's Golf 2 - PS1 Game
• Syphon Filter 3 - PS1 Game
• Dynasty Warriors: Gundam - Demo
• Uncharted: Drake's Fortune; The Inspiration - Video
• Alien Versus Predator - Blu-Ray Movie Trailer
• Lair 'Good Dragon' - Wallpaper
• Lair 'Bad Dragon' - Wallpaper

You can keep throwing Uncharted stuff at me - I'm lapping it up. It's certainly one of the games I'm most looking forward to. As far as the rest of the update is concerned, it's nice to see some PS1 games appear, but the rest of the Store is a little uninspiring.

And putting AvP on Blu-Ray isn't going to make that movie any better. Or even remotely good.

I'll give this week's update a C+ grade - 'Could do better'.

Capcom's big PS3 announcement; Lost Planet

At various points today as we reached the zero hour, Capcom Unity was down. Clearly, there's a reasonable amount of interest in what the Japanese developer/publisher is up to - enough to bring their servers to a halt at least!

So, what was the big Capcom announcement for PS3 fans we've been leading up to all this week?

Up until about 10 minutes past zero hour, I was still none the wiser. The servers were still down.

And then it appeared. Lost Planet is coming to the PS3.

So we lose Devil May Cry 4 exclusivity and then the Monster Hunter franchise and they give us Lost Planet. Wow.

The PS3 version will at least feature all the unlockables and extras from the PC and 360 versions. Gosh.

Why am I so under-whelmed. Lost Planet is yet another FPS that looks like Resistance/Area 51/FEAR/whatever. Whilst Resistance does the whole 'alien-infected wasteland' theme quite well and offers 32-player online, Lost Planet will offer 16-player online instead.

At the Capcom Gamer's Day in London today they also announced Streetfighter 4 and the aforementioned Dark Void but wouldn't confirm which consoles they would appear on.

Remember, Christian Svensson at Capcom said "let's see how they [PS3 owners] feel at the end of next week about us" after the Monster Hunter removal.

I have to respond, 'not great'.

PS3 UK sales jump 178 percent

Whether it's people snapping up the cheaper 60Gb bundle, or the new 40Gb flying out the door, Sony seems to have jumpstarted UK sales of our favourite console by injecting a price drop and a new SKU into the market.

Figures from ChartTrack confirm the 178% spike in sales and it's impressive.

Software sales also spiked with Resistance, Motorstorm and Heavenly Sword all going up or back in to the UK charts.

I still maintain the loss of backwards compatibility is an error without a clear plan to launch a 'premium' model to replace the 60Gb. Sony may, of course, have that clear plan but they're not going to tell anyone since that would halt sales of the 60Gb unit.

With other stories of further SKUs going through the FCC right now, I wouldn't be surprised to see a 120Gb or 160Gb with backwards compatibility next year to help bring the millions of PS2 owners over to the PS3.

GTA IV to feature 16-way multiplayer

According to details given by Rockstar Games at the PlayStation Holiday Preview Event in Toronto, GTA IV will feature a multiplayer mode that allows 16 people to frag, slice and dice their way across Liberty City.

There aren't many other details available but people are already talking about how they'll handle the 'map' problem. Do you reveal it, piece by piece, as the game goes on or unlock the entire city from the start?

Personally I wonder if they'll go with a separate multi-player menu that kicks you into pre-determined maps (since 16 players across the entire map would be daft - you'd find it hard to actually find anyone else), or if they go with the old multiplayer icon that then 'ring fences' that immediate area for the players.

If they did the latter, you could still have the 'revealing map' process since only people who have played the single player mode could get to the better multi-player maps - a reward system if you like.

Thanks to Digg user MAKJohn for shouting this story to me. Remember, if you subscribe to the PS3 Attitude RSS feed using the link on the left sidebar, you'll get access to our Diggs too.

European PS3 releases for week beginning 15th October

I'm afraid you'll just have to keep playing those titles you've already purchased.

This week in the UK and Europe, there are no new titles.

Nada.
Nothing.
Zip.

Still, don't fret. Next week you're going to have a real cash flow problem.

Jericho (and the Jericho Special Edition), PES 2008, NHL 2K8, NBA 2K8 and the brilliant The Eye of Judgement are all due on the 26th. If you want to, you can click these links to pre-order now since you have no other purchasing decisions to make this week anyway!

Capcom countdown; appeasing the PS3 massive

Following the news that Capcom had taken the Monster Hunter franchise away from Sony to make it a Wii exclusive, PS3 fans around the world decided to round on the massive Japanese developer/publisher.

Their response?

Christian Svensson, Sr. Director of Strategic Planning & Research for Capcom, replied "let's see how they [PS3 owners] feel at the end of next week about us".

So what have Capcom got up their sleeve.

If you head on over to Capcom Unity you'll see there's a countdown clock that is due to expire on 17th October at 09:00 (if my maths is correct!). Capcom's message? 'Prepare Yourself'.

Is this an exclusive PS3 title announcement that will make us all happier with Capcom. After all, we lost Devil May Cry 4 as an exclusive and then Monster Hunter, so maybe this is what Svensson meant by making us feel better.

The 'Prepare Yourself' headline is followed up with a cryptic message at the Capcom site:

??? ???? ????????????? ???? ??? ????????? ? ????? ? ??????.

??????? ???????? ??? ? ?????!

Elsewhere, people have spotted that Capcom have filed a trademark for the name "Dark Void". It's unlikely they would file a trademark this late and so close to an announcement, and none of the 'question marks' in the cryptic message have a four-letter word followed by another four-letter word, so I'm sceptical about this being anything to do with the announcement.

Still, roll on the 17th.