Sony has announced the European prices for the Playstation Network, where games can be bought online and stored to your hard drive. The launch title prices are listed below.

• Blast Factor – £3.49
• Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection £6.99
• Gran Turismo HD – Free

All future games will be competitively priced from £1.99 through £6.99. They are significantly cheaper than that of the Xbox Live and Virtual Console services, which both range from £4.00 to £9.00. Fans should be happy to see that Gran Turismo HD is free of charge, just like in the United States.

GDC is now just less than a week away, and kicking off the event will be Sony’s Phil Harrison who is a keynote speaker. One thing we can probably be certain of already is that he will have some sort of announcement. Now, our interests are peaked in an interview GameDaily had with conference director Jamil Moledina. This is what he had to tease about in the interview:

“Not to be coy but you’ll just have to come to his talk. All I can say is that I stand behind my ‘very happy’ comment.”

Jamil does not work for Sony, but we can imagine he has a good idea about the contents of the keynote. The media has been really down on Sony lately, so it’ll be interesting to see how this announcement pans out. Or if it will be soon forgotten after Shigeru Miyamoto’s keynote two days after.

Read (GameDaily)

Ubisoft has announced that Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 has officially reached gold status. The game has entered production and will be ready to ship on Thursday, March 8th. They have also said that there will be an in-game Achievements tracking menu for every single multiplayer achievement. This means that, it will be easier to find out just how much more work you will need to put in to unlock the next achievement.

Read (gameSlave)

A 26-year-old man from China died during the Lunar New Year holiday after taking part in a non-stop “gaming marathon.” The man reportingly played during most of the holiday. Although, the man was severely obese, so maybe that was the real reason why the man from Jinzhou collapsed. The game(s) he was playing were not mentioned, so at least no bad public relations will occur from this. DigitalBattle has the most sincere condolences for the family.

Read (EvilAvatar)

A fresh report made by Screen Digest shows us that next generation games are non-profitable. By using survey data from major software publishers, the report provides an overview of third party attitudes to making games the new console platforms.
The new games for the new consoles uses a lot of resources and time, so the financial investments is insecure. It will take up to the year 2010 in order for publishers to make any profit on the games.

The report tells us that the strategy to make a game exclusive for one console is far more better than publishing a title to multiple consoles. Microsoft uses this strategy, as in games like Gears of Wars; the financial investments were good, because the game only was exclusively released for one console.

It’s worse for the independent game developers, who invest all their money in one game. The result can be a big financial mistake. The strategy today is to buy the independent game developers and only create games for one console.

The extremely popular Japanese music bemani arcade game, Beatmania, is finally coming to the United States. Unfortunately, Konami will only be providing one coin-op machine of Beatmania IIDX 14: Gold. This will be a trial period to see how the sales are, and if successful, there is a chance we will be seeing more machines pop up around the country. Play the game while you can, as the test won’t last forever. If you’re lucky enough, you can play the game starting March 5th, at a bowling center in Naperville, Illinois.

Read (Joystiq)

Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America, is claiming that the stacks of unsold Playstation 3’s are a sign of how good the company is managing in handling the production of the PS3, not the lack of interest in the new console. Instead, he says he is pleased to see so many unsold PS3s sitting on shelves.

“Our goal is to fill shelves across the United States. Our goal is not to have empty shelves; it’s to have full shelves. If we have empty shelves, that’s one less consumer who could have bought a PlayStation 3.”

Read (IGN)

It wasn’t too long ago that Rockstar announced the sequel to Manhunt. And it didn’t take too long for Jack Thompson to react to it either. It turns out he has been asked by “certain individuals in the UK” to help stop the distribution of the upcoming game.

Manhunt was the center of dispute in a UK case: the murder of Stefan Pakeerah by his friend Warren LeBlanc in 2004. The game was pulled from stores following complaints and calls from conservative media publications; however, it was later found that there was no link between the game and the murder, and, in fact, the victim himself was the owner of the game rather than the killer.

At the moment it is not known how Thompson plans on stopping the game. We expect him to make his moves quickly, as Manhunt 2 is set for release this Summer.

The latest case of World of Warcraft addiction comes from Alaska where a gamer was busted by the police for leeching off the library Wi-Fi network to play the MMORPG online. Brian Tanner, 21, as per the article, had been chased out of quite a few places for leeching off Wi-Fi hotspots, and this is the latest case.

He is now waiting to see if he can be convicted. Apparently, usage of library networks entails following a set of policies set by the government, which includes not using it after hours.

Too bad for Turner, as his laptop was seized, and there isn’t any WoW in prison.

Electronic Arts announced today that SimCity franchise is returning with SimCity DS, developed especially for the Nintendo DS platform. In addition to creating and growing your very own pocket sized city while being on-the-go, players will be able to leverage the unique action features of the Nintendo DS system, discovering an entirely new way to play this internationally acclaimed franchise. The product will make its debut to consumers worldwide in summer of this year.  Players will also be able to create and control their city on there own free will…and much more. Maximizing the stylus and built-in microphone controls of the Nintendo DS, SimCity DS brings to the franchise like never before the feeling of personal involvement with your city—from blowing into the microphone to put out fires in the city to signing off on mayoral proclamations with your stylus. By enabling the players to communicate with each other, the “wireless data exchange” feature brings additional interactivity into the game. As an added bonus to SimCity fans around the world, the game also offers a wide array of recognizable international landmarks to spice up your city.

Read (GameZone)