According to GamesIndustry.biz Sony corporation’s hand-held is about to get an upgrade. Sony has signed a four year contract with BT to bring VoIP technology to the PSP. Services will include video calls, voice calls and messaging.

“The PSP is an excellent device for both gaming and communications because of its high quality screen and audio capabilities,” offered Steve Andrews, chief of mobility and convergence for BT.

The UK will be the first to utilize the new services with European regions added later. There is no mention as to when services will hit North America.

Reuters has the scoop on the new “Jackass” video game. The popular MTV series that has spawned two movies is now moving into new territory with their first video game. Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O and the crew have all signed on to lend their likeness and voices to the project.

“We’re excited as all hell about it,” Knoxville said. “It is kind of odd that people will take on our personas and depressing that they’re going to have to do that. We’ve never really worked on anything like this before. This is our first video game. We just hope that our video game is as crappy as our movies.”

Players will create their own “Jackass”episodes by combining stunts. Most of these aren’t from the tv show and are extreme.

Henry Price, senior director sales and marketing at Red Mile says, “We have the luxury of throwing characters off a 50-story building into a pile of elephant dung without worrying about our insurance rates.”

The game is scheduled to hit the shelves September 24 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Nintendo DS platforms.

Slated to hit shelves in North America on June 1st, Puzzle Scape for the PSP has gone gold. With an original soundtrack containing trance and techno style music, this block-busting puzzle game has players arranging colored blocks to form chains that explode to create vivid backgrounds themes. Each theme has ten different scenes with 40 different levels, power-ups and “additional spice to the game”. Play in artist, architect, and co-op modes with up to eight players on ‘bomb’ mode.

Got Game Entertainment will debut the game with a nicely priced MSRP of 19.99. Visit their official website for more details.

The video above shows a Sound Reactive Mod of the a DS Lite in action. It basically makes your DS flash LED lights in time with the sounds being played. It’s not something for beginners to create though since it requires a fair amount of soldering and knowledge of LED lights and amp chips; even the creator admits he melted a couple of speakers in his earlyier attempts. Still, this could make some of the music-based games, like Elite Beat Agents, a bit more entertaining. Or you could just listen to Corey Hart with flickering lights, as he seems to have chosen to do.

Los Angeles Business has the latest on a new Disney promotion. The Walt Disney Co. is offering a special download for its Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End for the Nintendo DS in it’s theme parks.

Beginning May 22nd through Labor Day, owners of the DS game will be able to go to “X-marks-the-spot” wifi stations near the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions and download new content. The Download is free of charge at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim and Walt Disney World in Florida, The game will be on sale at the parks for those who haven’t picked it up yet.

The Download promises exciting goodies such as unlimited health and “savvy”, and new costumes. This offer is a treasure for kids of all ages.

Pro-G provides the top 20 selling games in the UK for the week 20, 2007. Spiderman 3 for the PS3 dominates the UK top games for a third week.

Leisure software charts compiled by Chart Track, (C)2001 ELSPA Ltd
Entertainment Software (All Prices) Week 20, 20071: SPIDER-MAN 3
2: COMMAND & CONQUER 3: TIBERIUM WARS
3: PRO EVOLUTION SOCCER 6
4: WII PLAY
5: COOKING MAMA
6: TIGER WOODS PGA TOUR 07
7: FIFA 07
8: CRACKDOWN
9: DR KAWASHIMA’S BRAIN TRAINING
10: FINAL FANTASY III
11: THE ELDER SCROLLS IV: OBLIVION
12: SINGSTAR POP HITS
13: GRAND THEFT AUTO: VICE CITY STORIES
14: THE SIMS 2
15: GOD OF WAR II
16: BUZZ! THE MEGA QUIZ
17: NEED FOR SPEED: CARBON
18: LEGO STAR WARS II: THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY
19: NEW SUPER MARIO BROS.
20: VIRTUA TENNIS 3

Spiderman 3 has to stay on top two more weeks to match it’s predecessor which maintained the lead for five weeks on it’s release three years ago. It will have some stiff competition next week with several new releases hitting the shelves. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, driven by movies sales, will be a stiff competitor. Mario Strikers Charged for Wii, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales for DS and Crash for PSP will also be released this Friday.

Thanks to the PR engine at Nintendo we now have a lineup of upcoming games for the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS. The list includes 3rd party titles and goes through the end of September. A few of the more notable releases:

Mario Strikers Charged – July 30 (Wii)

Madden ‘08 – August 14 (Wii & DS)

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption – August 20 (Wii)

Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes A Day – August 20

The full list after the jump…

Read the full article »

GameSetWatch’s Kevin Gifford has an interesting proposal for the possibly departing Nintendo Power magazine. Last week Stephany reported that Nintendo’s magazine was possibly going the way of the dodo, and while this is still unsubstantiated Gifford has a suggestion for how Nintendo could continue to serve its customers and tie into the internet functionality of the Wii console.

As a long time subscriber who enjoys his Wii but rarely used the Internet channel I could see this as a great use of the system, especially if they could use it to deliver exclusive demos or news about upcoming games.

Sony’s got the big guns out now, unveiling over 30 titles across the PlayStation Family. On top of the list are new first-party titles, including Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, SOCOM: Confrontation, Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, The Eye of Judgement and Folklore.

Sony CEO Jack Tretton said, “As you would expect from the market leader, we are seeing a huge influx of games coming to all our PlayStation platforms in the remainder of our fiscal year. Users can expect more than 15 exclusive games and services for PS3, and another nine for PSP.”

Besides PlayStation 3 titles, Sony has a raft of new PSP titles as well, including Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow and God of War: Chains of Olympus. On top of that, Tretton promises there is more to come. “We still have a few surprises up our sleeves for this fiscal. The games and services demonstrate the gameplay, community and entertainment possibilities you can have on PlayStation products,” he said.

With all the negative Sony news floating around the last week or two, it’s good to see that their management isn’t buying into it. Sounds like they have a pile of stuff on the way worth checking out.

Celebrating the ‘heroes’ of baseball,
The Bigs is the newest baseball release title from 2K Sports. It will be available for all next-gen consoles, PS2 and PSP. 2K presents The Bigs with a much larger rock-and-roll / arcade feel than you will find in the ultra-simulation titles from other publishers. Looks like a welcome change to me. Check it out.