Posting over at the official PS blog, Ben Crease, Head of Production for VidZone, is happy to announce that the PS3 jukebox service is now available in 18 countries.

Which 18? Well, there’s a list …

Here’s a handy breakdown of just who went live and when.

We’ve dutifully focused our beady eyes on the charming 3D Dot Games Heroes of late and we hope it hasn’t gone amiss on your part.

Already out in Japan and confirmed by publisher Atlus for a release in NA sometime next year, the Zelda referencing RPG has got a lot of people excited due to its intriguing art style and reverence toward old-school gaming flair.

Even better, the game will support DLC, with Japan about to get the first of what we can assume will be many packs on December 25th.

How does a studio follow up a hot chick with a penchant for katanas, sub-machine guns and body art? With a homicidal teddy bear hell-bent on mass-murder of course.

Coming from WET developer Artificial Mind and Movement, Naughty Bear features a stuffed protagonist with one thing on his mind: the destruction of other bears who failed to invite him to a party.

Woah, put the hammer down! High Moon Studios’ new Transformers game “Transformers: The War for Cybertron” will have no connection to the recent Michael Bay re-imagining of Hasbro’s insanely popular robot franchise.

Published by Activision and from the studio who created The Bourne Conspiracy, the new game has everyone’s favourite mechanised protectors and overlords take on their more traditional appearances compared to Dreamwork’s more busier renditions.

Pixel-counters, graphic junkies – call them what you will. Regardless of your stance on the practice, no one can discount the phenomenon – which has only intensified during this generation of gaming – that showcases people’s obsessive desire to dissect multiplatform games and hail one the victor over the other.

We here at PS3 Attitude usually care very little for these graphical comparisons. For the most part, the games are actually indistinguishable to the human eye and we’d rather focus on the game itself rather than one version having an almost invisible jaggy while the other does not.

That said, we’re also suckers for innovation, so Eurogamer’s recent Digital Foundry article where the PS3 version of The Saboteur is shown to present a whole new graphical technical in the battle against the ever-niggling bugbear of anti-aliasing is more than welcome.

Updates are all the rage these days, and not one to be left out in the cold (pun intended), SOCOM is next to join the recent club.

In preparation for the upcoming (paid) Cold Front pack, Slant Six Games’ confrontational shooter is being enhanced to version 1.6.

The update takes the form of two main sections. Firstly, the previously mentioned new Special Forces teams (Dutch KCT and the Italian COMSUBIN) are included free of change along with new primary weapons for all squads.

Brütal Legend will get its second DLC pack on December 17th in the US (other regions TBC).

Entitled “Hammer of Infinite Fate”, the pack will see Eddie get a series of new skins, weapon upgrades, and multiplayer maps. Nine new trophies have also been confirmed.

Pulling off what many saw as a spectacular double-punch coup with the capture of industry mavens Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey from EA, speculation was rife regarding what “existing properties” Activision’s new studio, Sledgehammer Games, would turn their hand to.

Though not concrete confirmation toward the identity of the mysterious franchise, Sledgehammer’s new website and job listings do go a long way in providing something of an insight as to what it might be.

How far our passion has come.

Once the playground of kids and the socially inept, the gaming industry continues to expand and mature – enticing new demographics into its fold at an almost alarming rate.

Speaking to the Nightly Business Report, EA CEO John Riccitiello, though admittedly factoring in pretty much every single facet of the gaming spectrum known to man, claims that there are now one billion people gaming worldwide.

What did we do when games shipped as fixed, unalterable entities, warts and all? Oh yeah, we just got on with it (while usually exploiting every known glitch as much as possible.)

Two recent games that have gone down well with the masses have just received updates. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is now actually Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (1.06) while BioWare’s seminal fantasy RPG Dragon Age: Origins is now up to a mighty version 1.02.

It seems like only yesterday when we were updating to firmware 3.10 (well, for some of us, it actually was) but it looks like Sony have more *ahem* wares for us with James Thorpe popping up on the official EU blog with news of a 3.15 system update.

First things first: it’s optional.

Second things second: it adds the following to your PS3.

There’s some new BioShock 2 footage, and though it might be short, it sure delivers.

Check out the below video where the Electro Bolt plasmid is put through its paces.

Those of you out there who played the first BioShock will know all too well just how much fun can be had electrocuting people in a sub-aquatic environment.

We’ve debated about it in the past, but it seems the perennial All Games Need Multiplayer hokum just won’t die. Next up to the online plate would appear to be the recently announced Dead Space 2.

Found lurking in the darkest corners of LinkedIn, EA have advertised an open position at Redwood City, CA – the location of Visceral Studios – for the new Dead Space game. The publisher are quoted as “Seeking a highly motivated Senior Online Level Designer for the Dead Space franchise on Xbox360 and PS3. This is a major opportunity to contribute creatively to an exciting new franchise.”

We love patents.

Not only do they give us an early look into what a company may (or may not) be planning for us consumers in the near future, they’re also the source of some of the biggest WTF moments in gaming history.

Filing a whole slew of papers in relation to its upcoming Motion Controller, Sony have proffered a glimpse into a bizarre world of add-ons, interchangeable doohickeys, and some interesting possibilities when it comes to how they may proceed when it comes to using the new controller with other devices.

Splash Damage’s futuristic and dystopian FPS Brink has surfaced recently with new and exciting footage showing off the game’s unique SMART system.

Blending a free-running element akin to Mirror’s Edge with the usual ferocity associated with a First Person Shooter – as opposed to a First Person Runner – Brink is looking like a hot prospect for the end of next year.

Some eyebrows were raised, however, regarding just what hardware was actually running the current build on display in these aforementioned videos. Reported over at PS3 University – after confirmation from Splash Damage on their official forums – the footage shown is in fact from the PC version.

But don’t fret. The console versions will be on par. Apparently.

Europe and North American may be two countries divided by a common language, but it’s the differences in box art which is where the real fracture can be seen.

Case in point, check out the following box art for next year’s Heavy Rain.

Though both contain the key imagery associated with The Origami Killer, there are a few noticable differences between the covers – namely the lack of rain on one and the presence of newspaper clippings on the other.

And the fonts differ. Can’t forget about the font.

Which one do you prefer?

We all know that game publishers will do pretty much anything these days in the constant fight against the second-hand game market. The following, however, comes with a cheeky wink and a nod.

Presenting first-time buyers with the promise of what every young man really wants (boobs), The Saboteur will ship with day one DLC bundled inside the box allowing new purchasers the opportunity to unlock nudity in the game.

Known as “The Midnight Show”, the DLC code will also unlock a new playable area. But who cares about that? Boobs people. Boobs.

We’re not going to pretend that the following is anything of a shock, but when new games get the official nod from on high, we’re duty bound to report it as breaking news.

So, eh … yeah, EA have confirmed that a sequel to one of the best new IPs of last year, Dead Space, is officially in the works. But you already knew that, right?

Though a certain console’s name was mysteriously missing from the initial announcement by publisher Southpeak, it has been confirmed that Two Worlds II will be released on the PS3 along side its PC, Mac and 360 counterparts next spring.

An action fantasy RPG (think Dragon Age: Origins but with less man/elf lovin’), Two Worlds II is the sequel to the popular Two Worlds PC/360 game from a couple of years ago. A PS3 version of the first game was also in the works but was ultimately canned. So, in other words, don’t count your medieval chickens just yet.