Activision has announced that its first content drops for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 that go to Call of Duty: Elite subscribers will occur on Feb. 28.
Up to now, Xbox 360 Elite subscribers have gotten hold of their early content out ahead of everyone else — and in fact, players who weren’t on 360 didn’t know when to expect the content they were promised with their Elite subscription. Activision put out a press release this week narrowing down the date to the end of the month, and detailed what PS3 players can expect:
Call of Duty Elite Drop 1: Liberation, a militarized Central Park in the heart of NYC, featuring a vast landscape ripe for long-range sniper and LMG kills. Mounted turrets on opposing ends of the map offer overwhelming firepower to anyone brave enough to man them. Elite Drop 2: Piazza, set in an idyllic seaside village, Italian getaway gone rogue, where blind corners and a complex network of branching pathways pose danger at every turn. Visceral close-quarters combat dominates in Piazza, and attacks from above and below are an ever-constant threat.
Kaz Hirai, Sony’s… um, let’s just call him “Mega EXEC” for now, said the company will not announce the PlayStation 4 at this year’s E3. The Wall Street Journal reports Hirai is sticking to the 10-year life cycle for the PlayStation 3 and currently sees no need to replace it.
“Andy (House) is absolutely right in that we are not making any announcements at E3,” Hirai said at a CES roundtable with press, referring to statements made by Andrew House that there’s no PS4 plan for E3.
Meanwhile, over at the other console manufacturers: Whispers of an Xbox tease at CES never occurred, with current chatter of the next console’s details being “rumor and speculation.” Nintendo will certainly go big at E3 this year with the Wii U, after revealing the hardware at the prior show, and getting ready for the console’s launch later this year.
Sony is kicking off its PlayStation Vita Rooms tour in Manchester on January 13 which are “open to absolutely everyone” without the need to register.
Announced back in December as a way for the public to get hands-on time with Vita before its February release, the event will also give participants a chance to play some of the games included in the device’s line-up.
The Manchester event will be held at the Hilton at 63 Deansgate from January 13 through January 18. Times are as follows:
Friday – January 13: 12PM – 8PM *PLUS* Experience a live performance from Bashy at 4PM
Saturday - January 14: 10AM – 8PM
Sunday - January 15: 10AM – 8PM
Monday – January 16: 12PM – 4PM
Tuesday – January 17: 12PM – 6PM
Wednesday – January 18: 12PM – 8PM
Here’s a list of the games available to try at the event, with a few surprises possibly popping up as well:
Escape Plan
Little Deviants
ModNation Racers: Road Trip
MotorStorm RC
Reality Fighters
Super Stardust
Uncharted: The Golden Abyss
WipEout 2048
Sony is planning similar events in London and Glasgow as well, but recently announced it had cancelled the Birmingham event due to “last minute issues with the venue.”
Further information on PlayStation Vita Rooms can be found on the EU PS Blog.
Sony has cut the price of its PlayStation branded Tablet S by $ 100 in the US.
The move comes only three months after the hardware launched, with the 32GB model now selling for $ 500 instead of $ 600, and the 16GB SKU down from $ 500 to $ 400.
The Android 3.0 powered device features a 9.4 inch touch screen and Nvidia Tegra 2 graphics chip. It is able to download and play games from the PlayStation Store with support from the PlayStation Suite SDK, also used for PlayStation Vita, Xperia Play and other Android devices.
If you’re playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on a console, I have some relatively good news for you: Patch 1.3 for the game has cleared Microsoft’s approval and is available on Xbox Live right now. On Playstation 3, the patch is still awaiting approval, but is imminent.
Meanwhile, those of us playing on PC will be happy to hear that yes, Bethesda is working on a Large Address Aware patch that will allow the game to use up to 4GB of system memory instead of getting capped at 2GB (and thus spontaneously quitting to the desktop for some players). Bethesda says in its blog that it’s testing that patch right now, with more details forthcoming soon. A previous patch for Skyrim killed a third-party LAA patch, so it’ll be nice to get that back. Bethesda says we can expect that patch next week.
Here’s a list of what’s going into patch 1.3:
General stability improvements
Optimize performance for Core 2 Duo CPUs (PC)
Fixed Radiant Story incorrectly filling certain roles
Fixed magic resistances not calculating properly
Fixed issue with placing books on bookshelves inside player purchased homes
Fixed dragon animation issues with saving and loading
Fixed Y-look input to scale correctly with framerate
We’ve talked about Sony’s new handheld plenty, but we’re not a pair of slickly-produced CG commercials now, are we? If anybody’s going to give you the straight dope on the PlayStation Vita, it’s surely the good people at Sony.
Being a team composed of ex-media, the PlayStation Blog dudes have been sorely missing a podcast for some time, leaving Major Nelson to eat their lunch. Last month, however, PlayStation US social media guys Sid Shuman, Jeff Rubenstein, and Rey Gutierrez teamed up with product evaluator (and known swell guy) Nick Suttner to create the “Official PlayStation Blogcast.”
Beyond rapping about games, the guys do the occasional interview, highlight especially interesting PlayStation content (the incredible XMB theme above, for instance), and this week they’re kicking off their “Origin stories” series on the game industry. The guys also have an insider eye into the goings on behind some of PlayStation’s neatest stuff, so it behooves you to give them a shot.
An image has surfaced showing what is claimed to be a new version of the PlayStation Network.
A user named Afrotravis sent Gamersthirst what is alleged to be a screengrab of the overhauled PSN, reportedly made accessible to select beta testers – check it out below.
It’s not clear whether the supposed revamp is to the Network’s web presence or that accessible through the console; look to the top of the image for what looks a lot like a browser toolbar.
That said, in the upper right you’ll notice what looks like a very stripped-down XMB.
It all tastes a bit odd, and would probably benefit from a cupful of salt. Thanks, monu-mental.
