1w ago - Guerrilla Cambridge Senior Producer Mark Green detailed the pre-order bonuses today for those who grab Killzone: Mercenary a week early.

To quote: With each passing week, we edge closer to the launch of Killzone: Mercenary, the first PlayStation Vita entry in the acclaimed series.

Contrary to convention, Mercenary is also edging a bit toward us: we can today confirm a new North American release date of September 10th - a week earlier than our previous target.

Players who pre-order Killzone: Mercenary will receive "Blackjack's Briefcase," a reward for their early support that affords them an early edge in both the game's competitive online multiplayer and extensive Campaign mode. It includes:

Double XP Boost

• Get out ahead of the pack! Start the 48-hour clock with this special access code and all contracts, bonuses and payoffs earn you twice the normal XP for two straight days!

In-Game Cash Bonus

• Start the game and go straight to the armory! With this bonus payout, you'll have enough Vektan Cash to pick up a new weapon before you even step foot on the battlefield.

In addition to the above, fans in the United States who reserve a copy of Killzone: Mercenary at GameStop will receive an exclusive gun...

59w ago - Following up on the previous update, today Fun Bits Interactive Team Lead Chris Millar has announced that the free Escape Plan ppdate is now live for PlayStation Vita owners!

To quote: Today, Escape Plan owners will be happy to see new content popping up on their Vita for download.

The first pack, Bakuki's Lair, is a FREE level pack that adds 19 prequel-puzzle rooms to the adventures of Lil and Laarg. To download the levels, just update the game from Escape Plan's LiveArea directly on your PS Vita.

Fans of Escape Plan have helped push the game into the #1 spot on PSN worldwide, and so we're happy to report that we are improving the experience with a handful of adjustments that were requested directly from gamers.

Players can now squeeze Lil while swiping, front and back taps are more precise, earning stars is just based on time and there are some more hints in sticky situations.

Our plan for Escape Plan is to continue supporting fans and community worldwide by growing the game and updating the title with new features. If you haven't yet picked up Escape Plan, it's available now on PSN for $14.99.

245w ago - Community Team Leader MusterBuster at the official European PlayStation boards (linked above) has posted:

"Unfortunately, a minor technical problem has caused a delay to today's PLAYSTATION Store for PS3 release of new content. We will get the content uploaded for you as soon as is possible.

Apologies for any inconveniece caused, and we'll be sure to update you with any news as soon as we get it."

For those awaiting FIFA '09, it is 753MB and now available via our PSN Links page located at: http://www.ps3news.com/subdomain.php?pagename=psn.

Shortly following, another Community Leader stated: "I really dont know when this one will arrive - what you read is exactly everything I know about the issue. I know you're all disappointed. But I'm afraid there is nothing I can do to make this content appear faster!!!"

Hopefully SCE will sort out the issues soon enough!

252w ago - Bushing has released a tool for grabbing the keys from your Wii console. To quote: This isn't the prettiest code I've ever written - it doesn't have much of an interface, and I just threw this release together in a few minutes.

However, it's been exceedingly useful to me, and hopefully some of you will find it useful, too. I'll quote the README here:

Download: Xyzzy v1.0

This program will do the following, automatically:

- Download IOS11 from the Nintendo Update Server
- Patch it to remove the MEM2 protection (so the PPC can access all 64MB of it)
- Patch it to allow it to delete itself later using ES_DeleteTitle()
- Find an unused IOS slot (counting downward from IOS255)
- Install the hacked IOS11 there
- Reboot into the hacked IOS
- Copy the private key structure from the IOS address space into MEM1
- Reboot back into a sane IOS
- Delete the temporary, hacked IOS
- Display the keys on screen
- Try to write them to a file on the SD card -- keys.txt
- Pause for 60 seconds to allow you to copy the keys down using pen and paper, if necessary

I wrote this a week or two after I killed a Wii trying to reproduce tmbinc's original...