Street dates are a big deal here in the States. In the land of the lawsuit, and with the possibility of no longer receiving product in advance, businesses here just don’t play around. Overseas however, not so much. Various outlets in Italy have canceled their PS3 launch events and opted instead to start selling. Broken European street dates are not unheard of but as Davide Sher of Trade Interactive Multimedia told GamesIndustry.biz, “It’s a strange situation. This is the first time retailers have broken street dates by two days.” Shame on you retailers.

Sony’s announcement that the European version of the PS3 would not contain the same innards as their North American counterparts caused quite the commotion. At issue was the fact that the different hardware would not support 100% backwards compatibility. Sony has now launched a website detailing just what games will and won’t run. The site even uses a classification system to tell you just how well your games should work. Interestingly, some games will work very different depending on their production run. Just check out MGS Snake Eater.

TMNT arrived in stores today and to celebrate Ubi has released scores of screens to wet your appetite. The title is available on every platform but one, and old school Ninten-dites rejoice, your precious Game Cube isn’t that one. If good looks, nostalgia, and the presence of ninjas isn’t enough for you to feel safe about slapping the greenbacks down, you can always try the demo.

Joystiq has gotten their hands a fine little morsel of shenanigans courtesy of a Best Buy mole. Seems Blue is no longer interested in selling the 20GB version of the PS3. This brings an interesting element to the table when one considers the quasi-debunked rumor that Sony was not producing the 20GB version. If we believe the posts that follow the article, seems Circuit City is abandoning the 20 as well. My rumor will go like this: Sony offered the 20 just to sell additional launch units, and after showing us Home, will now discontinue it in favor of the pricier 60. Pass it on.

Microsoft has announced that the upcoming incarnation of Halo 3 will come in not one, not two, but 3 flavors. The granddaddy of them all would be the Legendary Edition, which includes the game, 2 bonus DVDs, some storyboard art, and comes package in a miniature Spartan helmet. Current anticipated price, assuming you can find one, is $130.00. Purchasers of the Limited Edition can still mock the richer and luckier of the species with the original art book included in the Limited Edition. Sorry fanboys, you want “all” the goodies you have to buy both.

Rare’s cuddle and secretly twisted and mature god-game Viva Piñata is now available as a demo via Xbox Live. The premise of the game, in case you’ve been under a rock, is to sup up your virtual garden to attract wild piñatas and bend them to your will. You will control what (or who) they eat, who they “romance” with, and weather or not they should be homeless or liven large. Should one of the colorful critters get out of line a quick shovel beat down can easily rectify their behavior problems. No really is a cute game. My umm girlfriend loves it. Yea.

Designing Wii games may be getting a bit easier for developers. Nintendo’s Takeshi Shimada recently discussed a development suite called NintendoWare that would enable Wii emulation on PCs. This would cut out the time consuming step of loading game data into the Wii developer Kit every time changes are made to the software. Nintendo is also developing a middleware application that will simplify fur shading. And the Furries thank you.

Majesco Entertainment has announced that JAWS Unleashed has made it to the PS2 Greatest Hits list. The game will now sport the $19.99 Greatest Hits price tag, so there’s no better time to get your chomp on. Really was there any doubt this title would make it? There are countless titles that let you shoot someone, but how many let you take a bite out of jet-skiers and would be vacationers.

While surfing along over at Evil Avatar I came across this post. Seems Amazon is having a 50% off sale on Blu-Ray movies. No I don’t mean to go all X-Files over here, but Sony shows us Home, and LittleBigPlanet, and now Blu-Rays are on sale. I wasn’t born yesterday Sony! There really is no sense in fighting it anymore, I know how this is going to end.

The Xbox Live Arcade hit Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved has made the jump to PC. GW now joins the rapidly expanding list of Vista only games available over at MSN Games. The full PC version is a bit pricier that its XBLA counterpart at $7.95, but still worth every penny. Here’s the free demo to tide you over while you scrape up the change.