When a much hyped game doesn’t receive the initial sales its publisher anticipated, there’s always the fear that it will quickly be forgotten about; relegated to the ranks of “We tried something different, it didn’t do too well, we’re moving on.”

Not so with Sega who, recognising that lush RPG Valkryia Chronicles is a quality product with a fervent fan base, are continuing to produce new and exciting DLC. With a number of packs already available, we now have news that another download is on the way.

Fans of über-popular, and sometimes even gaming related, web-comic Penny Arcade will be familiar with their character The Cardboard Tube Samurai.

Confirmed on his Twitter account that the attached image is real, Mike appears stoked that the iconic yellow costume, complete with Pac-man motif, will be a costume in Namco’s upcoming Tekken 6.

It’s that time on a Sunday once more, when we get Twitter-happy and shoot the breeze with you about what has happened over the past seven days in the twitter-verse.

With a puffed out chest and his fingers secretly crossed behind his back, Activision CEO Robert Kotick has come out and suggested that, unless Sony lower the price of the PS3, the super-publisher might have no option but to pull support for Sony’s platforms.

The statement, resounding around the internet yesterday like a wrecking ball, has caused many people to weigh in with their opinions on why such an eminent figure in the gaming industry would come out with such a bold and, let’s face it, totally incredulous statement.

Forgive us the indulgence but, now that Bethesda have committed to releasing DLC for Fallout 3 on the PS3, we just can’t help ourselves from bringing any new information about the packs to your attention.

After all, the last time we spoke about Fallout 3 we were talking about how the post-apocalyptic RPG had picked up certain Game of the Year Awards. And then … nothing.

Clint Eastwood delivers another outstanding performance in Gran Torino, his first leading role in four years since Million Dollar Baby. Eastwood stars, directs and proves that he can still be a bad ass at 79 years old. We certainly wouldn’t get in his way, specially when he’s wielding a rifle. We wouldn’t feel lucky at all .

Apart from somebody mistaking him for Chuck Norris, a crime punishable by death in some states of the union, we have heard nothing but positive things about this week’s number one SD and HD movie of the week.

They took their sweet time but PSN Cards are now available in Canada.

Offered in CAD$20 and CAD$50 denominations, our Canadian friends can now pick up the handy cards at EB Games and GameStop nationwide and, according to the PS blog, can also expect to see them at Best Buy, Future Shop, HMV, The Source by Circuit City and Rogers Plus in the coming weeks.

The availability of PSN Cards is one of those no-brainers that have always surprised us as something Sony should be putting more effort into. At least now we can say another region has been ticked off the list.

Probably the most talked about aspect of Zipper Interactive’s Massive Action Game (or simply MAG if you prefer to be pithy) is its mammoth 256 player role-call. What hasn’t really been touched upon until now is the actual story behind the game.

Story in an FPS? Who cares! Right? Well, developers usually like to put some context on why you’re killing who you’re killing, and Zipper are no different.

Wishing to offer some back-story as to why you and 255 others will be running around a map trying to off one another, lead game designer Andy Beaudoin and fellow Zipper-ites have popped up over at the official EU PlayStation blog and have talked up the game’s clandestine “Shadow War” premise.

Oh, the wonders of corporate talk. Having invited readers to pose questions about upcoming stealth adventure, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Ubisoft have responded over at their official forum.

Straight to the point (and question #1 no less), a reader wastes no time with bringing up the exclusivity elephant. Why no PS3 love they ask? Ubisoft respond.

Not quite the same size as last week’s ultra big update, but it can hold its own thanks to the PSOne ultra mega classic Metal Gear Solid. Oh yeah, time to get sneaky like it’s 1998.

Can’t get enough foosball? There’s a demo for you. Want more JRPG than you can shake a review at? Three free packs for you. Crank it up to 11 with Rock Band’s Spinal Tap and Evanescence track packs and waste your money on even more ‘premium’ themes.

The Homerun is back for another week of Home news from around the world. We will give you analysis of what’s happening in and around the virtual hub for the PlayStation 3.

We’re very happy because unlike in the last Homerun, we have a tonne to fit in this week so lets go straight into business and talk PlayStation Home!

We’re pretty sure Jeff Rubenstein over at the PlayStation blog has the best job in the world.

Not only does he get to jet around the globe and cover cool gaming events, he also gets to interview truly awesome people like Nolan North, Emily Rose and Claudia Black. Or Nathan Drake, Elena Fisher and Chloe Frazier to the rest of us.

After last week’s big one, things have certainly slowed down significantly in the European PS Store update front. Not a big deal, some of us have yet to digest all the content from last week and we got games to play anyway.

Unless you got Rock Band, Guitar Hero, or are really looking forward for some more free MotorStorm livery packs there’s nothing here for you. Except for some cool videos like the Assassin’s Creed commented gameplay trailer, Inferno Pool, inFAMOUS and Mini Ninjas trailers.

It was actually quite some time ago when we were promised that Bionic Commando: Rearmed for the PSN would be getting trophies. We waited and wait, but to no avail…that is, until now.

Yes, almost a year later, our good friend John Diamonon over at the PlayStation.Blog has announce that Rearmed would be getting a patch real soon. There are also some other enhancements that will be coming with the patch but you’re not interested in those, are you?

Following up from the recent bikini-mod, Konami continue to roll out the Metal Gear Online content during their week of anniversary celebrations.

This time we get Old Snake as a new playable character along with the handy Octo-cam suit rendering him invisible to opponents. Well, not entirely invisible, that just wouldn’t be fair. You will blend in to your surrounding environment however.

With 2009 now the latest edition in the beloved series, Virtua Tennis has been a stalwart sports sim on consoles since its emergence back on the Sega Dreamcast in 2000. Of course, a lot has changed since those heady days of 128-bit serving and volleying. With this generation’s near photo-realistic graphics, ubiquitous online options and numerous other advances in game-play and design, you’d expect Sega to serve up a vastly enhanced rendition of the popular title.

But have they? Looking at the amount of detail and copious game options available we’d have to say yes and there’s no doubt Virtua Tennis 2009 is a solid and enjoyable tennis sim. But, and there’s always a but, we just feel there is a lack of innovation in the perennial update that suggests that – though Sega have produced a great game for tennis fans – they may not necessarily have made a significantly new one.

The folks over at Joost have been providing an online service streaming video to the internet masses – if you use a PC, that is.

As of this week, the Joost functionality is available to all PS3 users via the internet web browser direct from the XMB.

With the release of Vidzone just recently, we have to ask if there is a need for this option for the PS3 masses?

IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey is the next in the series from 1C, developers of the previously PC-only series of aerial combat simulators.

With some serious gaming pedigree behind the game’s latest iteration, there are high hopes among the team for the title.

Happily, we have a trailer for your perusal so you can see if this gets your altimeters working overtime too.

Good news Qore heads, your final episode is finally coming out. After the much publicized pre-E3 leak and PSP Go! announcement fiasco, Qore comes back to win your good graces with a bit of a bribe.

An exclusive Qore T-shirt for PlayStation Home is bribe number one. After enabling the shirt in Qore, it will be accessible in your PlayStation Home wardrobe in both male and female variations. Want more free stuff?