It’s been quite a successful day for Sony. With the announcement of the PS3 Slim along with a new lower price and the Video Store making it’s way to the UK, people are going to have a lot of extra cash on hand. What better way to spend it than on a prepaid PSN card!

We’re at GamesCom in Cologne this year, and the first order of the day is to cover the much-anticipated Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Press Conference.

Whilst the rest of the Internet has been awash with rumour and speculation, as usual we at PS3 Attitude have bit our lips (and kept the ‘Drawer of Secrets’ locked), preferring instead to wait for the official word.

And now that word comes to you via our people on the ground, (almost) live from Germany.

We are nearing the release of the long awaited and somewhat fabled Firmware 3.0 for the PlayStation 3. How do we know we’re close to see it? Not only it was just announced at GamesCom, but the US PlayStation.Blog released a video update on how the new firmware is coming along with a slightly new look.

We’re still at Gamescom and the wi-fi is a little fuzzy at the moment so, just in case you missed our Twitter feed, we’ll keep this brief.

Sony have finally announced a price cut for the PS3 while also unveiling the oft-rumoured PS3 Slim.

Taking to the stage at Cologne, Sony big-wig Kazou Hirai talked about how Sony have a bright future and how Gamescom is officially “the third major date on our gaming calendars” (after E3 and TGS).

But enough of the pleasantries, Kaz also wanted to touch upon form and certain things “slim.”

If the recent Game of the Year edition wasn’t enough for you (in NA, the EU doesn’t appear to be getting it), check out what promises to be the next big thing to hit LittleBigPlanet. Water.

The official PlayStation Blog has finally revealed just what the big announcement is all about and we can’t wait to get our hands dirty, ahem, clean with the upcoming DLC kit.

Praise the Gods of Metal! A demo for Brütal Legend will be available to download from the PSN on September 17th.
So if the soundtrack didn’t sell you, maybe the in-bound demo will.
Considering Brütal Legend’s long …

Showcased today at Gamescom, CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Petrusson proudly announced DUST 514, a game best described as an FPS MMO with some RTS elements.

The new title will also be connected to the larger EVE Online universe, offering users who may have yet to experience the space opera an insight into just what they’ve been missing.

High praise for Edinburgh Interactive 2009 from leading games industry luminaries

As Edinburgh Interactive drew to a close on Friday, some of the industry’s key decision makers in videogames and interactive entertainment, who attended and participated in the Festival, have been quick to offer high praise for Edinburgh Interactive this year and hail it as a triumphant success for the seventh year running.

At Edinburgh Interactive, we got to speak with Nathan Vella about the game Critter Crunch. He was like a kid in a candy store when it came to talking about the game, and rightly so. This game just exudes cute from every pixel.

But also has a massive element of gross-out ickyness, when you think about it.

Nathan was awesome to talk to, so let’s get on with it, eh?

We all know about the G25. The steering wheel of the elite. At £125, it featured everything except an F1 driver in the box to drive your games for you.

Long has it been the pinnacle of design and style in the world of gaming peripherals.

But no more! The suitably-named G27 has come out of the pits fighting and is now careening towards stores worldwide in time for a release in September.

And what will you get for your (wallet-emptying) £329?

GameSpot have posted up a new trailer for Pandemic’s colourful The Saboteur and it sure is decadent.

Posing the obvious question of “What’s an Irishman doing in Paris?”, the answers are pretty much what you might expect: drinking, fighting, and blowing up Nazis.

The new footage focuses on main character Sean Devlin and his relationship with the French Resistance in occupied Paris; including how they are prepared to fund and supply his personal vendetta against the local Germans. We also get a full-on assault of Sean’s roguish charm and way with the ladies (and head-butts).

Japanese for “darkness”, Kurayami is the new game from the eccentric mind of Goichi Suda. Known as a PS3 exclusive, but little else, some new details about the upcoming survival game have emerged over at GameSpy.

Kurayami truly has some peculiar elements going for it. Inspired by the works of Kafka, Suda-51 intends to explore the concepts of fear and loneliness as you explore a town full of oddities towards a strange castle, using only your torch to light the way.

Crysis 2 for the PS3 is going to be one of those games that will either re-invent the FPS, or fall flat on its face. Though it will surely be a pretty game, a lot depends on whether or not Crytek can match their legendary visuals with compelling gameplay and story.

Check out some new demo footage of CryEngine3, the engine that will power Crysis 2, taken by a fairly steady hand over at Gamescom.

Hats off to Titan Studios for when they say they’re on something, there’s really on it.

Completing the trifecta, we’re happy to report that the “Why Can’t I Connect?” Fat Princess patch (aka 1.02) has now finally spread to Asia.

With NA, Europe and now our friends in the east receiving this assuaging connectivity fix, we’re hopeful anyone who wants to play with a Chubby Cake-Muncher, now can.

If we wrote an article every time a major retailer drops the price of the PS3 today, we won’t get to the other great stories that are emerging so – let’s just get this one out of the way.

Thanks to our friends over at TSA, we now know that Kmart — big, evil and ubiquitous Kmart — have announced on their official web-site that they’ll be selling the PS3 at a new lower price. What’s more, they’ve also hinted at a “New Exciting PlayStation 3″.

When Kazou Hirai takes to the stage at Gamescom tonight (2pm EST) the PSN will be powered down for what Sony are calling “routine maintenance.”

It’s not the first time the network has been taken offline for such measures (and it won’t be the last) but speculation is rampant that the fact that the two hour downtime just so happens to coincide with Sony’s keynote at Cologne is no coincidence.

The most likely reason the whole network needs rebooting would be the arrival of a new firmware.

That said, don’t be surprised if they simply chose this time purely because they expect most gamers to be glued to live feeds of the conference and not online killing Helghast.

By way of some extra inspiration for our awesome Design the Official PS3A Sackboy competition – where you can get your hands on one of those uber-rare LBP Golden Crowns – some of the staff here at PS3 Attitude decided to design their own entries.

Well, when we say ‘entries’, we really mean ‘inspiration’, since none of the team here at Attitude Towers are allowed to enter for real.

And when we say ‘design’, well… why don’t you decide for yourself!

Remember when we showed you the box art for the upcoming Game of the Year edition of LittleBigPlanet and also told you of it’s $30 worth of extra goodies? Well we now we have the exclusive BACK of the boxart for your viewing pleasure. Oh, and what’ll be included in this edition as well, but that’s not important, right?

Do you enjoy the music of the Foo Fighters? Harmonix thinks you do, and they know everything music related. Everything. So there’s more Foo for yoo. A new pack (of the three track persuasion) will commemorate the return of the Fighters to Rock Band. But wait, there’s more.