Celebrate, homebrew fans — while Sony had managed to evade the attempts of hackers to crack into the latest iteration of the PlayStation Portable, the PSP 3000, it’s finally been accomplished. Sure, we knew it was inevitably going to be cracked since it was released in October, but with the talent of hackers these days, I’m surprised when things aren’t hacked as soon as they’re released.

Of course, this comes at a price — $30, to be exact. A new battery from the England-based maker of Action Replay, Datel, enables users to put the PSP in service mode, reports Maxconsole.net. From there, you’ll be able to downgrade the system’s firmware, thereby allowing you to access all of those wonderful (albeit typically illegal) tools, apps, and emulators you’ve no doubt heard of. The battery features a convenient switch to allow you to jump between service mode and normal mode and functions with both the PSP 3000 and 2000.

The Datel ‘Lite Blue Tool’ battery is being released on November 28 for $30 in North America and $20 in the UK. A technical explanation (containing fancy words such as “de-capsulated”) of how the feat was accomplished can be found at Maxconsole. Those interested in picking up the new battery can find it’s now available for preorder from Datel’s online store.

Your move, Sony.

Undoubtedly the highlight of this week’s PlayStation Store update (which, once again, ignores PSP owners altogether) is the release of the long-awaited BioShock challenge rooms, as promised earlier. For $10, you’ll be able to work your way through three separate scenarios: Rescuing a Little Sister from a carnival, killing a Big Daddy without any weapons, and tackling a series of rooms containing wave after wave of enemies.

Also new this week is downloadable content for Dead Space (various skin packs and weapon packs, ranging from $1-$4) and new costumes for Little Big Planet (a free Sack in the Box costume and a $3 LocoRoco pack which has five different costumes). Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour square off, with GH adding three tracks from The Raconteurs ($2 each of $5.49 for a bundle of all three), while Rock Band 1 and Rock Band 2 get three songs from Mission of Burma and three from the Dead Kennedys (both artists’ music costs $2 each or $5.49 for a bundle of all three songs). There are also four other songs from Crooked X ($1), Lacuna Coil ($2 each), and In This Moment ($2), which you can get in a bundle for $5.49. Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Encore 2 also gets five new songs, each for just $1.49.

Aside from that, there’s a demo of MotoGP ‘08 (which you can check out on PC at FileFront) as well as some videos, trailers, and themes of everything from NBA 2K9 to Hancock.

Sorry, PSP owners. I wasn’t teasing you — there really is nothing for you this week.

According to PS3 Fanboy, National Geographic will be publishing Sony’ PS3 exclusive Afrika in the U.S.

As you may recall, earlier this week it was announced that National Geographic was getting into the gaming business, and even released a schedule of upcoming games. One of the games listed to launch this month is National Geographic: Africa–which you will forgive me for not putting two and two together because: a) the spelling change in the word Afrika, and b) the addition of National Geographic to the title.

So I guess this means that the U.S. will be getting this game after all, although I cannot for the life of me–no matter how pretty it is–expect it to be much of a hit here in the States. Unless you can watch a pride of lions wreak havoc upon a herd of poor, unsuspecting wildebeests and the end result being nothing short of bloody carnage, most 13-year old males will not be interested.

(Thanks VG247)

This cycled through the internet a bit yesterday when most people believed these transparent PSP billboards were real (via Toxel). Sadly they’re not; just concepts for an ad campaign from an artist called “Skizo.” There’s no doubt however that this is one damn creative idea. I’m not sure quite how well those ads would work after some exposure to the elements though (plus that one with the sniper would probably result in a few calls to the cops). Still, I sure wouldn’t mind looking out my window every morning to see Spider-man outside.

The rest of the concept images can be seen after the break.

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Talk about a case of bad timing. On the eve of the big launch for the New Xbox Experience — which, remember, marks “a new dawn in home entertainment” — we’ve learned that Netflix streaming won’t have quite as many films available as we had been hoping. Joystiq learned earlier this evening that a number of films — including both Ghostbusters and Bad Boys — are now unavailable to be streamed to the Xbox 360. The common link between the suddenly unavailable flicks is that they are all from Columbia Pictures, which is owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment. The films haven’t disappeared from Netflix altogether; they are still available to be played on PCs and on TVs through other devices, making this seem like a petty move on Sony’s part to try and take the wind out of Microsoft’s sails.

As it turns out, it seems like this is simply a matter of licensing. Given that Sony BMG music is available through the Zune Marketplace and other Sony Pictures Entertainment movies are still available for streaming through Netflix to the 360, this might not be the proverbial middle finger that some assume it is.

MTV Multiplayer contacted Netflix and received a reply from their VP of corporate communications, Steve Swasey. He confirmed that these movies “are still available to be watched on subscribers’ computers and on TVs via other partner devices, and we hope they?ll be licensed for Xbox 360 shortly.” While he wouldn’t comment on whether the timing is pure coincidence or if Sony put in a request to put this in motion, but he did say:

As watching instantly becomes a more prominent part of the Netflix service, our goal is to have all of our streaming content licensed for all of our partner devices. We’re doing well in this area, but it will take some time before we fully achieve that goal. Today, titles regularly come in and out of license and there is a natural ebb and flow to what we have on license at any given point in time.

We contacted Microsoft to see what their take was on the situation and, as you’d expect, they declined to provide any comment, saying that it wasn’t their comment to make.

What this all seems to comes down to are the intricacies of the licensing process to distribute streamable video.

What would be interesting to find out is what take those involved in the affected movies have on the situation. If this really is a simple petty quarrel between Sony and Microsoft, you can bet the cast and crews would be none too pleased. Should it really be a licensing problem, it’s nothing short of one hell of a big coincidence. Without any proof, we can’t go around pointing any fingers just yet. But if Sony happens to release PlayStation Home to the masses tomorrow, we might just have our answer.

EverQuest II: The Shadow Odyssey is officially live. The fifth expansion for SOE’s EQ2 brings in the Moors of Ykesha, a massive overland zone once known as Innothule Swamp and the legendary dungeon the Ruins of Guk as part of 20 new zones for players to conquer.

Here’s the game trailer to get you in the mood.

You can pick up the at retail stores or grab it by digital download at www.station.com. The full features list for EQ2: The Shadow Odyssey follows the break.

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Back in August, Sony announced that in November they would be releasing a limited edition PS3 bundle that should make anyone with $499.99 to burn shaking with anticipation.

True to their word, this bundle has been spotted at a Best Buy and according to Engaget it includes Naughty Dog’s swashbuckling hit Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, a PlayStation Network voucher for PAIN, a DualShock 3 wireless controller and the big 160GB PS3 console. We assume that the 160GB console will be available separately from the bundle–but the catch is that it is NOT backwards compatible. Most people still own a PS2 anyway, so unless you are a stickler for that sort of thing it should not be that big of an issue if you really want one. If not, there is always the $399.99 80GB version if your local store had gotten new shipments of them in–the ones around me have not.

Most likely the bundles will be available at other retail stores as well, but to save on gas money you may wish to call around to make sure.  I would apologize about the blurry picture, but Engadget has already done so.

Little Big Planet was heralded as the PlayStation 3 game that would appeal to all demographics and divert some of the mainstream attention towards the PS3 that’s currently focused squarely on the Wii. It seemed like it was on track to do just that and be a huge seller in October. Then came the controversy surrounding lyrics in the game’s soundtrack that included quotes from the Quran which resulted in a recall and subsequent delay, pushing the game back from its October 21 release date in the U.S. to October 27. While that might have not been a big deal in and of itself, the recall most certainly cost Sony a fair amount of money and also likely hurt the game’s October sales.

Only two PlayStation 3 games made the top ten sales chart for October: SOCOM: Confrontation and Little Big Planet. The two games were neck and neck in sales, with SOCOM getting the edge, 231,000 to 215,000. That’s despite SOCOM coming out nearly two weeks sooner than LBP, but it’s important to keep in mind the fact that SOCOM is also available through the PlayStation Store — sales of which the NPD Group does not track.

For such a big release, selling just over 200,000 units — even for a game releasing at the end of the month — seems like a disappointment. So does Sony have reason to be alarmed?

More than likely not. While the October sales figures aren’t going to blow anyone away, Little Big Planet is a solid candidate to sell in the six digits month after month, much like many of Nintendo’s first party releases on Wii. And, of course, November will be a huge month for games, and the release of Resistance 2 so close to LBP might be enough to motivate gamers who may have been on the fence to finally go out and pick up a PS3 — thereby increasing the pool of people who could potentially buy LBP. As if our review wasn’t clear enough, it’s a game that simply must be played. With LBP, the more players the game has, the better it will become. So if for no other reason than to see what kind of creations the masses can conjure up, we hope sales for the game explode next month.

There’s just a single standalone downloadable game this week — Age of Booty ($10), the Capcom RTS featuring pirates that was released on the Xbox Live Arcade in October — but there’s no lack of downloadable content for other games. First and foremost is Pain Movie Studio Lot ($6) and the David Hasselhoff character to go along with it. But do you love/hate The Hoff enough to pay $2 to throw him around the world of Pain?

Little Big Planet gets six new costumes ranging in price from free to $2. The Lilly Pad, Hugo, Great Blue, and Frost E costumes all cost $1 each — or you can get the Animal Costume Bundle with all four for $3 — the Sack-Eating Plant costume — which was an SCEE contest winner — is available for free, and the MotorStorm Stormers costume will cost a pricey $2. Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds also gets new costumes, although they come in the form of a single pack for $3 and include five new costumes with six variations each. And Star Wars: The Force Unleashed also gets in on the costume fun with seven new characters and three new Secret Apprentice costumes for $5. The new characters include Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Luke Skywalker. Star Wars fans should be plenty pleased with these additions. If your favorite character wasn’t included, there’s still hope — this is “costume pack 1,” which suggests there are more on the way.

FIFA 09 has a plethora of free commentary packs for various languages — everything from Portuguese to Swedish to new English commentary is included — that will allow you to hear your favorite soccer commentators from around the world in their native tongue. Depending on which you download, you’re looking at a file from 423 MB up to over 1.1 GB.

The weekly dose of Rock Band content features 12 tracks from the Foo Fighters. Each track will cost you $2 or you can get all 12 in “The Colour and the Shape” album for $20. If Guitar Hero World Tour is your thing, you can find three new tracks from R.E.M. for $2 a piece, or you can get all three for $5.49 as a bundle. Jimi Hendrix also makes an appearance with a bundle of three songs for $5.49.

Need for Speed: Undercover isn’t even out yet, and there’s more DLC than I’d care to count available, all of it in that “would have been cheat codes last generation” class. Prices range from $1.75 on up, with various bundles available for as much as $10. They’ll unlock things for use in the game that you’d otherwise achieve by playing through the game.

And what would an update be without some new trailers and videos? There are a handful of new things to check out… unless you’re a PSP owner, in which case you’re pretty much out of luck for another week. The only thing for you this week is a demo of Neverland Card Battles.

What is perhaps the most basic concept of something to drop into your Little Big Planet creation — a spinning wheel — can spell complete and utter doom for any Sackboy that dares go near it. Well, any wheel that’s been set to spin at the maximum possible speed, at least.

The video above (via PS3 Fanboy) demonstrates this glitch, which apparently occurs when a player makes contact with a large wheel that’s spinning as quickly as possible. Your character will then immediately die on a continuous loop, even if you exit the level and return to the pod or restart your PS3. The only solution, according to the video, is to delete your save file and never again wander near these death traps.

If you’re aware of any other solutions or serious glitches in LBP, be sure and let us know in the comments below, and save your fellow Sackboy bretheren from experiencing the same unfortunate problems you may have run into.