And it’s a beast. How will the graphics compare to the Xbox 360? That remains to be seen, though their respective graphics technologies are sounding fairly neck and neck to me. The Cell CPU certainly beats out the Xbox 360 chip though. We’ll see, the proof is in the pudding, and so far for the PS3 that seems to consist of GT5, MGS 4 and DMC 4.

Update: Pic of the supposed design below (taken from here). Not final, but then the early PSP ended up being fairly similar to the final one. Looks rather undistinctive to me. More pics here.

Just stumbled across this great little item via GameBlogs. The Next Gen, 1995. As fenegi puts it, "Remember back when rendered cutscenes were all you needed to be next
generation?" How true, I certainly do.

It looks like Xbox Live Arcade might have some worthwhile games afterall! Pom Pom make splendid, pretty, and damn fun shareware games and now they’ll have Mutant Storm on Xbox Live too. Live Arcade is out soon in the UK, guess I’ll be trying it.

I want to believe. I want Path of Neo to be good, to let me do all the astoundingly cool stuff Neo did, even if he did sound like a stoned surfer dude. Even if the average punter has long stopped caring much about The Matrix, with Shiny taking their time on this one I really think it’s got a chance. As long as they don’t include a Trinity-shagging mini-game. Watch this new trailer and see if you think it’s got what it takes.

While it’s obviously similar to its forebears, the game’s noticeably superior
presentation and unique use of the DS’ capabilities should help to provide some
newness if your interest in the series has waned.

Yep, that’s me then. I played a fair bit of the original GBA Castlevania, got horendously stuck, gave up. I might just have to get this one though, I’ve still yet to find a game that makes owning a DS worthwhile and this looks like one game that could change that (along with Meteos).

Don’t worry, not all of today will involve stealing stuff shamelessly from ShackNews. Splash Damage is a great company. They started out in the mod scene with the superb Q3F and are doing a great job now making a living out of that talent. Their latest is Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Goofy title, but it looks real purty already thanks to some new fangled MegaTexture technology from id. One to watch.

Didn’t see this one coming. Blizzard just bought Swingin’ Ape. They’ve only done one game,the rather good Metal Arms: Glitch in the System, though they’ve a lot of experienced guys working at the company from what I gather. I guess Blizzard was really happy with their progress on Starcraft:Ghost, can’t wait to see more of it. (via ease_one (who works for Swingin’ Ape) over at the Shack)

Unsurprisingly, Sony is looking to rain on Microsoft’s parade with the unveiling of the PS3 this E3. They’re already showing some clever teaser posters around E3, though interestingly the tag line is "Welcome chang3" - might they be going with the PlayStation 3 tag after all despite claims to the contrary?

The Cell CPU should be insanely powerful, though it sounds like it’ll be tricky to code for at first (as per usual with Sony) and the graphics chip is roughly on par with the Xbox 360 one. Reportedly. More interesting is a quote from the Sony CFO that suggests we might see it this year, however I very much doubt that myself. Still, with all three next gen consoles firing their opening salvos this is going to be a fantastic E3.

You’ll have to ask Nintendo about the logic behind the timing of this announcement because I’m not convinced they’re stealing much thunder here. Even so, CVG reports that Revolution is going to be minuscule (the size of three stacked DVD cases apparently) and use DVD size discs as well as offering DVD movie playback and GameCube backwards compatability. Oh, and wireless controllers of course as well as Nintendo’s "sorry we’re late, but we promise it’ll be really good!" online support. Aside from the impressive size there’s nothing too ground breaking here even if the movie and GameCube support is nice. Though it sounds like the controller is set to be the main surprise once they reveal that.

The OurColony.net final reward was a video with a lot more info of interest to gamers than the seizure-inducing MTV show revealed. At one point it flashed up a bunch of face plate designs for the console and it seems someone was good enough to screen grab them all. I’m not too keen on any of them to be honest but we’re bound to see a load of quality third party ones in no time.

As the key  Xbox 360 launch title Perfect Dark Zero is pretty underwhelming so far, more spoken promises than promising visuals and details. I can’t help but get the impression Rare was a bit of a shambles after the MS buyout. As 1 UP point out, 25 months between titles for a developer of that size is a really worrying sign. We’ll see if things have pulled together when the Xbox 260 launches.

There’s a trio of these over at the official site. Of course, that means they’re fairly shallow marketing pieces but there’s still some good meat in there. For one, Project Gotham 3 is going to have motion captured 3D crowds - that should go a long way to alleviating the common complaint that PGR2 was fairly lifeless.