Sony Computer Entertainment has announced that PS3 users will now have to wait just a bit longer to get a taste of PlayStation Home. With an open beta not expected to begin until fall of 2008.

Following completion of the extended closed beta test, the Home open beta service will commence in fall 2008.

Well, its better to have a prefect Home release than one that will be full of glitches and bugs, right?

April 15th on the East Coast and firmware 2.30 is live. The major update for this release is new redesigned PLAYSTATION Store, and trust me, this is as good it gets. As soon as you clicked that X button on your Sixaxis controller, you will hear the first sound update on the PLAYSTATION Store.

So if you haven't yet upgraded to 2.30, you better do it now or else as a PS3 user, you are missing out!

Hideo Kojima's commented on his own creation, Metal Gear Solid 4 and the PS3. It's almost inevitable our take on the situation will be misconstrued as blind fanboy bias, but we'd like to try to take an objective glance at what he said. In a recent interview in Edge magazine, Kojima said that the gameplay of MGS4 is fairly close to his vision, but the graphical side of things got a slight hit from what he envisioned: "things like motion-blending and the size of the map, totally was not accomplished to my original vision – to my satisfaction."

After their initial TGS showing, everyone was excited to see what the PS3 was capable of, but once development really started, Kojima says they could not evolve as much as he wanted. "The original vision was to go ten steps further, the reality was just one step, which isn't to say we didn't progress." The CPU apparently is at fault here, as the Cell is being fully employed, says Kojima.

He doesn't blame the PS3 and rightly so that one thing to lay out your plans and envision what you'd like to do, but when it comes to it, you've got to sacrifice some of your dreams and ideals. Was Kojima dreaming too much with his original ideas? Not really– but what he wanted might have been something we'll need to wait another generation for. We'd like to have a smell-o-vision, but we'll settle for rumble. Is that the PS3's fault? Nah. Kojima should relax — his game looks fantastic and we're sure all his fans will agree he's made much more progress than he's giving himself credit for.

[via NeoGAF]

For those of you into Sega emulation on the Wii, the new emulator was released with a whole lot of changes:

- fixed VDP initial when loading save state: graphics fix in TMS9918 mode
- added port $3E emulation and full support for SMS BIOS 
- implemented SMS1 VDP "tilemap mirroring" bug: fix Y's status bar when in SMS1
- updated Z80 core  
- corrected PAL CPU clock value
- Updated FM Unit detection

- added full overscan emulation
- corrected Game Gear VDP handlers in SMS mode: fix colors in GG-MS mode
- improved Codemasters Mapper emulation
- added Korean Mapper emulation
- adjusted SMS color palette values

- added support for original video mode (240p/288p)
- added "Aspect" option to switch between Original  and Fit Screen display modes
- added "Xshift" & "Yshift" settings

- added "Border" option to enable/disable borders color emulation
- added "Palette" option to let you choose the Brightness level

- added Wii mode support

- added EURGB60 & PAL 50hz TV modes support
- added 480p rendering mode support in Wii mode (not supported by the PAL60 version, use the other one, even on PAL wii)

Download:

GameCube: smsplus-cube-080419.7z

Wii: smsplus-wii-080419.7z

Sony announced that they have just released their official PS3 firmware version 2.30 on April 15th

Changes for 2.30:

The Blu-ray Disc playback now supports DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio output.
However, The PS3 system does not support playback of DTS-ES and DTS 96/24 for DVD-Video or DTS-ES Matrix for Blu-ray Discs.

Here it comes, a Wiimote clone for the 360. With the Wii leading the way in sales across the globe no wonder Microsoft had to try the Wii's secret. The project is being codenamed Newton at the moment. Newton is also going to use an LED sensor bar that can be powered by the USB ports on the 360, it is going to have an LED sensor on the front accelerometer and gyroscope sensor that can detect tilt and motion, rumble motors, wireless two way data communication with the 360, a built in Microphone for Xbox Live and voice-activated games.

Newton will probably be out by winter of 2008. Microsoft is rumored to have licensed patents from Gyration which is the same maker of the Wiimote… legally, Microsoft is not ripping off Nintendo but rather licensing the technology from the same place that Nintendo got it.

It will still be a few months before we see leaked photos of the final version. Until then we can only dream of what it will look like and how it will sell. This can be a great thing for Microsoft. People will decide “Hey, why not buy this console so we can get the best of both videogame worlds!” With the Arcade system coming down to the Wii’s price then it will be even more of a selling point.

well it looks like sony is trying not to pop the 4.00 bubble yet.

New for 3.95:

A new option for playing PlayStation® format software has been added. You can now select [Custom] for the assignment pattern under [Assign Buttons].

You can now choose either [Quit and Turn Off the PS3™ System] or [Quit Without Turning Off the PS3™ System] after you select [Quit Remote Play].

• You can now play discs that support Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0 (BD-LIVE). You can connect to the Internet while playing discs that support this format so that you can obtain additional features. Features that are available vary depending on the software in use.
• You can now copy playlists that you create in photo (Photo) and music (Music) to a PSP® system.
• The way you register (pair) Bluetooth® devices has changed, and you can now register more devices.
• A [BD Internet Connection] setting has been added under [BD/DVD Settings].
• An [Audio Output Device] setting has been added under [Remote Play Settings].
• You can now display an image while editing a playlist.
• You can now play a music track while editing a playlist.
• You can now play DivX and WMV files that are 2 GB or larger.
• You can now display subtitles when playing DivX files.
• You can now resume playing a DVD from the point where you previously stopped it.
• A [Mosquito Noise Reduction] option has been added under [AV Settings] in the control panel for standard dvds
• You can now play BD-R version 1.2 (LTH* BD-R) discs.
• LTH, or low to high, is a recording method that supports organic dye, write-once BD-R media.
• You can now change some PS3™ system settings during remote play.
• [Save Target] has been added as an option under [File] in the browse mode menu of the Internet browser. This option lets you save a file that is linked from a Web page, such as an image or video file, or other type of file, to your PS3™ system’s hard disk drive or storage media.
• The Internet browser now displays some Web pages faster.
• Using the Internet browser, you can now play a linked video file* as it is being downloaded.
• Some types of video files cannot be viewed in this manner and must be downloaded completely before playback.

Its a little late but I had to post it anyway.

Master Chief from the Xbox game Halo, is available for use on your PS3 version of Unreal Tournament 3. Its very simple, all you have to do is…

1. Unzip the userdata.jar in the download link below to a usb stick or a memory stick.

2. Start your game.

3. From the menu select community.

4. Then my content, from here press [] and follow the directions.

Download

Joyous news for all Wii-owning brewers, the Wii can run unsigned code without physical modification! The method, known as the "Twilight Hack", has been floating around the internet for a little while, so sorry if this is a little late. As the name implies, it requires a copy of "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess", as well as an SD card and a computer that you can write to an SD card from. It works through a stack buffer overflow, and is the only way that you can run homebrew without a modchip. Note that GC applications won't run through this method. 
The hack works with the following disc versions:
 RVL-RZDP-0A-0 JPN – working
Some minor problems reported e.g. Some greeny lines around the top area of the screen that appear with the penguin and if the TV type is set to 480i/p (60Hz or EDTV mode) the bottom is cut off

RVL-RZDE-0A-0 JPN – working
RVL-RZDE-0A-0 USA – working
RVL-RZDE-0A-2 USA – working
RVL-RZDJ-0A-0 JPN – not supported yet

The latest available version of the hack can be downloaded at: http://chaoshq.de/~crediar/twilight-hack-v0.1-alpha3a.zip

As always, read any included documentation, ask questions when necessary, and do this at your own risk!

Cheers, all []D^_^